Re: Axes

From: donald_at_...
Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2005 21:37:18 GMT

In message <41FFDC74.8040709_at_...> Andrew Solovay writes:
>
>Bruce Ferrie wrote:
>>
>> The sort of people who can afford to run a great big fireplace like that
>> - generally, chiefs - are the sort who are most likely to be able to
>> afford this sort of expense on tools.
>
>But even if a chief *could* afford a saw for such use (circumstances
>where an axe would do the job, though less efficiently), wouldn't it
>still be cheaper to pay two stickpickers to use axes instead of one
>stickpicker to use a (valubale, fragile) saw?

This is the point I was trying to make. Also the craftsman who made the saw would probably be seriously insulted if the tool he'd spent so long working on was given to a stickpicker to cut firewood. Tools represent a big investment in the societies we're discussing. I'm not even sure a stickpicker would be trusted with an axe, more likely a cotter would take his own axe to do the cutting and the stickpickers would go along to shifting the cut wood. Again a carl with his ox team would be more efficent at hauling the wood but he's not going to trust a stickpicker with his oxen. My guess is that in many clans there is a surplus of stickpickers for the work they are trusted to do and bloodline and clan loyalties mean there is no incentive to use more skilled people even if the work can be done more efficently.

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/