Ancestral Roots
PRIMITIVE SKILLS DAY have a chance to meet again in this sister event to
WILD DEER GATHERING.
Learn to work skin, sinew, antler, and bone ensuring that nothing is wasted.
New 2026 Courses Below
See Event list and Full Calendar for details.
OVERVIEW
A full day of creating and crafting with primitive and modern tools.
This course partners well with the butchery and skinning skills from Wild Deer Gathering,
or you can jump straight in.
Here we can extend our honouring of the deer to include many of the by-products discarded in modern times.​
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Come join me round the fire and get your hands dirty!
LEARN
Learn to break down this primal treasure chest and extract bone, sinew, hoof and precious hock skin just as our ancestors did.​
Deer stalkers usually throw out the lower leg of the deer, a by-product of the first stage of preparing the animal for the larder.
In modern times we have forgotten what a treasure these ‘waste products’ can be!
We will also explore an introduction to SKIN-TANNING exploring a selection of small game skins, deer rawhide, buckskin.
DETAILS
Things we will cover:
- Modern tool use and safety;
- Primitive tool use: cutting, scoring, grinding, sanding, boring, stitching and gluing the old way.
- How to process and preserve materials: softening, drying, tanning and smoking.​
- Stitching, lacing and adding ‘Bush-Bling’.
- ​​Take home your treasures
- Fashion your own pouch, knife, harpoon point, arrow head, gear maintenance kit, marlin spike, scraper, pendant, needle or cordage (or whatever you can dream up!).​
CONDITIONS
Suitable for adults and accompanied 13+ teens.
Cost for the day is £100 per adult and £80 per teen.
( 13+ teens must be accompanied by a paying adult ).
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The day will run from 0900 to 1600 to give us plenty of time round the fire.​
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The group will be no more than 10 to ensure you have my fullest attention.
​Full details of what to bring are provided at booking.
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Feel free to bring stories, songs and musical instruments.
Ancestral Roots Bushcraft Course
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Back to the Source: Deer Butchery and the Path of the Primal Trail
By Gazza Butcher | Primal Trail Bushcraft There is a specific kind of silence that only exists in the woods of East Sussex in the winter. It’s a damp, heavy quiet, broken only by the crackle of a fire or the sharp snap of a dry twig underfoot. Whilst taking a much-needed break from the…
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Rendering Deer Fat into Tallow
A Deeper Connection to my food through Ancestral Practice. Skin, bone, antler, hock, hoof, sinew, internal organs, fat the list is long. When a deer is taken as part of a healthy approach to active ecological managment, the responsibility that follows does not end with meat in the freezer. Through embracing the old ways and…
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Chewing the Fat: A Detailed Look At Rendered Deer Tallow
(For a look at rendered deer fat or tallow in general, and an overview of how to make it, see our related Blog post: ‘Rendering Deer Fat into Tallow’). Rendered deer fat is more than a cooking ingredient. It is concentrated information. Fat records things meat often hides: the animal’s age, sex, season, diet, stress…
How To Book: See the EVENT LIST above to book this course type, or browse the calendar for all offerings.
