LCPD hosts Poto stick making workshop
Sho-Ban tribal members and participants at the LCPD Poto stick making class at Sho-Ban Jr./Sr. High School on Saturday, March 21.
By LORI ANN EDMO
Sho-Ban News
FORT HALL — Participants scraped chokecherry wood and attached elk antler for the handle at the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes Language and Culture Preservation Department Poto (digging stick) workshop March 21 at the Shoshone-Bannock Jr./Sr. High School.
Nolan Brown, LCPD Original Territories manager, said they were just teaching the basics in making the digging sticks. Because of warm weather participants were able to sit outside to debark the chokecherry wood. They used knives and hatchets to scrape the wood off.
Sonya Wadsworth (left) and Colton Teton scraping Poto sticks.
“The participants just gotta pick out, a wood that calls to them, and grab their knife, debark it, and then I explain how to do each end, one end, you know, you’ll have for your handle, and the other end is the digging point,” he said. Once they have it all carved, then they’ll give them an elk antler tine.
He said the elk antlers were given to the LCPD through a trade with the National Elk Refuge in Jackson Hole, Wyo. “They provided all of the antlers for us to use for our digging sticks, and we’re gonna return them a single completed digging stick for the visitor center to be on display.”
Mardel Butler (left) and Georgia Hart Fredeluces scraping sticks out of chokecherry wood at the workshop.
When participants leave for the day they will have all the pieces – the carved stick, elk antler drilled out and ready to put together. The antler can be attached to the stick with pine pitch and charcoal.
Elk antlers used for Poto stick handles.
Brown said he learned how to make the poto from Russell Haskett, Fort Hall Business Council member, when he taught a class at LCPD a number of years ago.
He’s used his poto to dig camas, bitterroot, wild onions, etc.
