What would you put in a Traditional Skills SKIP badge?

While this reference is only from 1912, there are many many items that can be built that you might consider for your badge list.  For everybody else, it's a great "make it work" DIY homestead device list.

Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them

Foraged primitive tinder
Foraged fatwood
Actually start a fire using a primitive method.
Bank a fire.
Save/safely transport an ember and use it to light a new fire.


Flint knife/arrow

Make ink (lampblack)

Make paper/parchment

Primitive dental care?

Make a rain predicting device. In Scandinavia, we use both of these

Self defense....I trained 10 years martial arts (Okinawan Karate Do, 3 styles including traditional Okinawan weapons), had my own dojo. Myself along with another martial artist (who specialized in ju-jitsu, knives, and Filipino fighting sticks) held free self defense seminars in my dojo for the locals twice a year.

For those into firearms, take a firearms training course. I was security police in Air Force so was trained in firearms and other tatics.

Cat Knight wrote:Foraged primitive tinder
Foraged fatwood
Actually start a fire using a primitive method.
Bank a fire.
Save/safely transport an ember and use it to light a new fire.


Flint knife/arrow

Make ink (lampblack)

Make paper/parchment

Primitive dental care?

Great list Cat!  I have most of those in the badge already.  I think I don't have fatwood since I don't know if it's as much of a thing in my area.  Dental care would be in Natural Medicine (if anywhere).

Oh, I missed this thread earlier! Below I've suggested some things to add, and some things that you could change if you wanted more global applicability for PEM.

Pottery:
- Waterproof a green-fired pot (milk, linseed oil, pitch all work)
- Make a clay whistle (really useful for being heard over long distances)
- Make an earthenware storage pot (historically used for everything from wine to grains -- need to be >4L/1gal in capacity)
- Make, apply, and fire a simple earthen glaze on a pot

Materials:
- willow -> wood suitable for withies (hazel, willow, etc -- would need to demonstrate pliability without breaking)
- wood suitable for woven basketry (lots of options, including spruce root, bamboo, vines, etc)
- split wood for woven basketry (maple, oak, many other hardwoods)
- bark suitable for making baskets (birch, tulip poplar, cherry, fig, etc -- but would need to show drying it properly)
- reeds (for rushlights, weaving, making mats, thatching, furniture, boats, etc)
- pine pitch -> harvest resin and make pitch
- make hide glue suitable for furniture (cow, horse, sheep, etc)
- make hide glue suitable for flexible applications (fish swim bladder, rabbit, etc)
- collect high-tannin plant material for tanning hides
- materials for biochar
- collect and process material for dying cloth, leather, or baskets
- process a bone or antler for carving (is bone carving in any PEM badge? Could possibly fit in here -- bone is an excellent, hard-wearing material)
- process a horn or hoof for carving
- collecting stones for a particular job? Heaps of uses of different kinds of stones -- knapped arrowheads and knives, spindle whorls, fish net weights, loom weights, sling bullets, limestone for carving or turning into quicklime, dry stack or mortared stone walls, ground into dyes/pigments, smelted for ore, etc

Basketry:
- pine needle basket -> coil basket (possible with many different plant materials, even rope -- same technique)
- weave a large basket (for harvest, storage, transport -- baskets for moving chickens around used to be quite common!)
- waterproof bark basket -> waterproof basket (can be achieved with any basket method -- harder with coiled/woven baskets, but was done quite a lot historically)
- straw/basket hat (or put this in Textiles)

Flame:
- flint & steel (could be in metalwork/tool making also)

Transport:
- birch bark canoe -> canoe, kayak, or other lightweight boat (other traditional options include dugouts, rafts, coricles, punts, reed boats and I have to put a word in for the Polynesian paopao and waka, and other ocean-going craft which are beautiful examples of traditional skills!)
- combine oar and canoe paddle?
- wheelwrighting could be in Iron Badge for woodworking -- super difficult but also very important!
- wooden wheelbarrow (European or Chinese style)
- packs for pack animal (saddlebags or something a bit more complicated with rope netting or platforms)
- external frame backpack (e.g. Otzi the ice man's leather and wooden one)

Household:
- ammonia from stale urine (for washing, dying, fertiliser)
- buttons (bone, shell, or antler)
- make a net out of harvested fibre
- insect repellent herbs
- meat safe/ambry/other air-cooled food storage solution
- evaporatively cooled 'refrigerator'
- traditional wood-fired bread oven
- sieve/sifter (most useful for flour/grain processing & usually made from fibre, or fine cloth)
- dry a fur/hide with salt
- salt from sea water
- make a sewing needle (thorn, bone, antler, metal)
- make a comb (bone, antler, horn, or appropriate wood)
- hunting horn / horn for sound purposes (can also traditionally be made with large sea shells)

??? (slightly more specialty skills)
- make a feather quill capable of producing good lettering
- bookbinding
- quern or burr flour mill
- mortar & pestle or metate or similar item for grinding grains
- coopering (probably goes in woodworking)

Wonderful list M, thanks!!!  I'm at Wheaton Labs right now and when I get some time to go through all the details, I'll be adding some of them to the list.  I had no idea there was flexible hide glue...

Mike Haasl wrote:

Cat Knight wrote:

Primitive dental care?

Dental care would be in Natural Medicine (if anywhere).

By this I'm referring to teeth cleaning, not dental work. Different cultures did this different ways, some more effective than others and some dependent on local resources. I don't know a ton other than whittling a toothpick :) ;) Just wanted to clarify.  

Ancestral Skills:
what languages were spoken in your area 200+ years ago? what tribes?
learn X# of words in an indigenous language for your area
make homemade electrolyte drink from historical recipe; sekunjamin, harvest-time tea
ID 10 plants native to your area.  Start a Materia Medica listing uses for each.
first aid kit from native plants. cloves for toothache, comfrey for wounds, twine for tying, ear spoon, tooth care, blisters, burn salve, yarrow powder for bleeding
what was used as salt in your area? make some.
recreate a board game documented 200+ years old
recreate a hunting skills competition game; documented 200+ years old
recreate a shelter suitable for winter, documented 200+ years old
make plant-based soap, hair cleaner, surface cleaner or laundry cleaner (native to your area)
make trail signs that someone else can track
identify 5 animals by their scat and tracks (wild in your area)
make a simple oil lamp  (using supplies native to your area)
How would you use a rabbit with the least amount of waste?
design a permaculture guild using plants native to your area
write an announcement of a local event, in morse code as if by telegraph
design something ordinary with a hidden spy-style message (knit scarf with morse code letters)

others:
put by enough seeds for next year's kitchen garden (could be store-bought)  
harvest enough seeds grown locally to plant a garden that would feed your entire family for a year (not store-bought)
lay a fire, light it, and boil 1 cup of water in less than X minutes

[quote=Kaarina Kreus]Make a rain predicting device. In Scandinavia, we use both of these[/quote]

My grandparents taught me to use a store bought barometer the same way. Although usually I just use my ears and knees now that I'm older.