Penan Blow Pipe

The Penan are one of the indiginous tribes of Sarawak, Borneo. They were 'on our side' during WW2 and may still be seen wandering around the villages of Sarawak with a Japanese sword, borrowed from it's owner, bizarrely sticking out of a bamboo backpack.
They specialise as hunters, to that end they use blow pipes with poisoned darts to kill their prey.
This image shows the business end of my blow pipe. It's 2 metres long, made of extremely hard wood which doesn't float. The spear tip is simply there for hooking dead animals and birds out of difficult locations. The metal was once part of a car or truck suspension leaf. Nothing is wasted, recycling is an art form to the Penan.

This is the end where you attach a Mark 1 human and blow hard to get the dart to leave the pipe.

This is the quiver which contains the poisoned darts. It is made from a section of bamboo, joined to a piece of hardwood which simply slots over a liana belt. The darts are constructed from slivers of bamboo, the ends are made from Balsa wood, which gives stability in flight, but importantly provides resistance to the air forced through the tube by the Mark 1 human.

The whole pipe is an ingenious piece of kit. It's made from a lump of very hard wood. A Penan will sit on a platform about 3 metres up off the forest floor with the wood clamped between his feet or lashed to the frame, he then sits patiently with a very long piece of metal with a chisel end and taps and spins it in order to produce one of the most incredible artefacts totally hand made. I have no idea how they ensure the hole continues to be straight throughout the pipe. When it's made the hole is arrow straight, but with time and exposure to drier climates and central heating a definite bow has occurred, almost 1 cmm.