Bushcraft Video Series:

David Styles, creator of 'Deep Nature Mentoring' presents …

How To Make
Cordage

Transcript Of Video

Copyright © David Styles 1. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

 How Do We Make Primitive Rope?
Today what we are going to learn
about is how to make cordage – or
rope - from nature.
I am right here by the ocean and
the tree I am on is called a
Pandanus tree. It is absolutely
magic here, we are down a place
called Watego's near Byron Bay
and we are underneath the shade
of a Pandanus tree. It is a beautiful
tree that has very useful leaves for
making cordage.
It also has a fruit that you can eat.
The fruit has oxalic acid in it, so
you have to heat it up on a fire to
destroy the oxalic acid. However,
the Pandanus tree is one of the
icons of the coastal landscape
here – I just love it.
But today what we are going to learn about is how to make a rope.
So this is a little piece of Cordage that I have spent probably about five or ten minutes
making and today we are going to learn how to make it. That's because in a survival
situation, if you find yourself stuck in middle of the bush and you are on the top of a cliff
and you want to get down, how are you going to do that? What if you get stuck and you
don’t have any rope with you? What if you find yourself stuck out in the bush without any
rope - what are you going to do?
Well traditional indigenous people living close to the land knew how to make rope.
So if you are going to make a debris shelter for example and you have nothing to tie the
sticks together - how are you going to do that? What are you going to do in a survival
situation?
Once you understand how to make rope - how to make cordage - you feel lot more
comfortable in the bush. At a deeper level, if the supermarket starts running out of
materials - if the supply chain stopped, what are you going to do?
So this is something that indigenous people have been doing for tens of thousands of
years... is learning how to make rope. This small piece I have make is really strong. I really
can’t break it, no matter how hard I try.

Copyright © David Styles 2. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

 Look For Fibers To Make Cordage
With this little bit of rope I have made, you can probably notice there are some fibers
coming out the end of it. So when you are wanting to make cordage, start to look around
the natural environment for fibers that you can start to make cordage from.

You will find these fibers in the plants around you – so in this case plants can start to
become one of our best friends.
So if I look around where I am right now, this leaf in my hand is a Pandanus leaf. So I can
carefully pull off a bit of the upper side of the leaf here.
When I am doing this, I always ask permission from the plant. I always honor the material
that I work with from nature. That's because everything in nature is gifted to us and it is
good to honor that because ultimately it’s part of who we are. That's because both us and
the plants - we all come from the same thing.
So just honoring the Pandanus, I can just pull away the upper membrane from the leaf.
Then you can see that underneath the initial leaf layer are some exposed fibers.
So if you take your time and carefully pull these fibers out, you can get quite long fibers. It
is these fibers here that we can actually turn into rope.
I can then start to separate these parts of the inner leaf out. These parts within the leaf are
called fibers. The fibers have an initial strength, but there are ways of putting these fibers
together, so that you can make very strong cordage.

Copyright © David Styles 3. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

 How To Find Long Fibers
The idea with fibers is that you are after long fibers. Ideally you want to find long leaves.

Then it's just a matter of splitting the leaves open longitudinally and seeing if there are any
fibers inside the leaves. Not all leaves contain the fibers that you need for making cordage.
However if you are new to the plant kingdom and making cordage, then it is just a matter
of testing out a few different plants to see if you can find nice long fibers within their
leaves.
The longer the fibers are, the better because you won't have to splice them as much.
For example, the husk from the Bangalow Palm fronds contain very long fibers which are
also very strong. You will also start to see that some fibers are stronger than others once
you start testing different plants.
When you then start to remove the fibers from the leaves, sometimes you will need to
process them further. For example, the fibers from the Bangalow Palm fronds tend to have
a pithy 'rind' surrounding them. What I do to remove that is to simply take the fiber
between my index finger and thumb nail and run my nail along the fiber to scrape the little
bits off the fiber. Wen you take the time to do this, you can make good craft, jewelery and
necklaces out of it.
Traditionally, indigenous people they would sit around camp fires and talk and share
stories especially in winter and make crafts such as cordage and fibers.
It was a way to bring the community together through doing basket weaving and making
cordage with fibers. I have friends that do that.
So I highly encourage you to go for walk around your local neighborhood and look for
plants with really long leaves, see it if you can split them and look for ones that have the
fibers in them. That is to get fiber to make cordage and ultimately make rope.
However, before we go further into the training I'd just like to tell you a little story about
how I was first introduced to this way of making cordage in Japan.

Copyright © David Styles 4. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

 Story Time
Many years ago when I was in my early 20s I got inspired to go to Okinawa in Japan...

Okinawa is way down South in the tropics. The local Okinawan's are the people that live to
the oldest age on average around the world. So I wanted to find out what was it that made
the Okinawan's live for so long.
I had my backpack and I wanted to go and find the locals and ask them of what was it that
allowed them to live the longest on average on the planet.
So I ended up flying over to Tokyo, got a two day ferry down South. I didn’t speak
Japanese and the people on board didn't speak English. Eventually I caught another ferry
out to a little Island off the coast of Okinawa because it felt like that was where I would find
the oldest people.
So I was on a small ferry and this guy touched me on the shoulder and he said:
'Hi!!!!! Excuse me would you like a beer?'
I was like: 'Ah!!!!! That sounds really good.
His family was there and we were having a beer and we were going off to this island off the
coast of Naha. I remember the guy saying:
'Ah!!!!! You are very lucky.'
To which I replied 'Why am I so lucky?' And he said I was very lucky because today and
the next week we have the big festival.
I was like... 'Ah!!!! What festival is this?'
And he said: 'Ah!!!!! We have a tug of war competition.'
I was like expecting the tug of war rope to be the thickness of my wrist and I was excited
because I was going to meet the old people that had been making the rope for the tug of
war competition since they were born.

Copyright © David Styles 5. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

That night there was a big party and then the next day I went with one of the young guys
out to a field and there was lot of sugarcane. I noted on the outside of the sugarcane field
was a little hut made with lots of grasses on top.
Underneath the shade were a group of old men. They had a type of machine and they had
a lot of big husks from the sugarcane.
I was like... 'Wow!!!! What are they doing?'
And he was like... 'Ah!!!!! Let’s go and have a look over there.'
So we went over. There were all these old men - the old men that I wanted to meet. They
were all wrinkled faced, but there bodies were all really toned and they had six packs and
it was like... 'Wow!!!!! What are these guys on?'
So we went over to the hut and they are getting the husks and they were twisting the
husks and then wrapping them around other husks. Twisting the husks wrapping them
around. Twisting the husk and wrapping it around... and they were making a rope from the
sugar cane husks.
This rope was about as thick as my thumb.
Next to them was another guy and he was getting four of these ropes and then twisting
them together and making a rope about as thick as my wrist.
Then, next to him was another guy that was getting four of these thicker ropes and twisting
them together. Eventually they were making a rope about the diameter of my torso.
I was like... 'Wow!!!! What is going on here?'
And they said: 'Ha!!!!! This is the tug of war rope. We make a bigger rope so it does not
break. This is what we make.'

I was like... 'Wow!!!!! How did you guys learn this?'

To which the reply came: 'We had been doing this for generation and after generation we
do this.'
I remember also asking them and how they stayed stay fit for so long and why they lived
for so much longer and he said: 'Ha!!!!! We have a very, varied diet - we eat a lot of
different things. Plus we do this - we exercise a lot.'

Copyright © David Styles 6. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

So anyway, we were twisting on the sugar cane husk and they told me how to make this
rope. I was getting all of the husks and helped them to make the tug-of-war rope. We
ended up making a really big, thick rope.
That night we had this massive long rope for the tug-of-war competition. There were a
couple of hundred people on our side and a couple of hundred people from the North side
of the island.
We ended up losing because our rope snapped because of so much force we put on it but
it was an amazing experience - simply amazing.
Now, it wasn’t probably until ten years later that I was like reflecting on this experience
whenever I would go into the bush. In Australia there is no native sugar cane so I didn't
think I could learn how to make a rope here.
However, a few years ago I was living on a community. One day my friend Alistair said:
'You know, I have some friends who are living out in the bush and they are having a
celebration for the end of 12 months in the bush. Would you like to come?'
I was like... 'Wow!!!! That sounds really great.'
So I went along and they had built their own huts, learnt to get got bush tucker, survival
foods, navigation as well as a lot of bush skills.
At one of the workshops at lunch time my friend, Claire - she does bush skills - and she
was running a workshop on how to make cordage. She set it as a challenge to go out into
the bush and to make some cordage.
I was like... 'But there is no sugarcane here. How am I going to make cordage?'

And she said: 'Well, what you do is to go and look for some leaves and you pull them apart
and see if there are fibers in them. For example, if I went to this leaf here and tried to pull it
apart, are there are any fibers in there? No there is not.'
So I literally went out and started pulling leaves apart to see if there were any fibers in
them. For example this leaf I have in my hand - if I pull it apart, are there any fibers? No
there is not.
However, what you want to look for is really long leaves and some of the barks - you can
also pull the bark off some trees and make that into cordage.
So we went out and I found some Lomandra. We also had found some Bangalow Palm
husks and we got to pull those apart and we found those really long fibers. Then she
showed us the technique to make these fibers into cordage. We ended up making a
beautiful piece of cordage and ended up tying it when I got home. That is a whole of a skill
yet again and that is my story with making cordage.

Copyright © David Styles 7. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

 Technique For Making Cordage
Now I will show you how to actually take those fibers and then make them into rope.

What I do is that I get four strands of fiber. You can use six strands, eight strands or
multiples of two. The more strands you use the thicker the rope is going to be. However,
what I like to do is start with four strands and split them into two strands and two strands.
Then I take where they join in my thumb and forefinger and squeeze them tight together.
What I do next is take two strands of fiber and I will twist them away from me and then
bring them both towards me.
Then I will take the other two strands twist them away and bring them back towards me.
So what you are doing you are twisting the strands away from you, then you bring them
back on itself. When you bring it back you cross it over the other two strands - and you
want to bring it back really tight.
Twisting away and bring it back on itself. Twisting away, bring it back on itself. Twisting
away, bring it back on itself. That is essentially how you make cordage – simply getting
strands, twisting them away from you and bringing them back on themselves.
You can use multiple strands. The more strands that you use to twist away and bring back,
the thicker the rope is going to be.
However, if you are making fine little rope with just four strands of fiber, you can use this
for things like fishing, tying up baskets, thatching a roof or making a debris shelter.

Copyright © David Styles 8. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

 Making 'Thick' Cordage
To make thicker cordage, you can firstly make a length of cordage with four strands of
fiber. Then you can make four pieces of this cordage... and then take two and two, twist
them away from you and back on itself; twist away and back on itself etc.

Then you will have a much thicker and stronger piece of cordage with 16 strands of fiber.
That is sort of what we did in off the coast of Okinawa. We started with quite a lot of
sugarcane and then made lengths of 'rope' and then twisted these pieces of rope together
to make thicker and thicker pieces of rope... until it was as thick as my torso.
So that is the basic technique with making cordage and it's good to go for a walk around
your neighborhood and keep an eye-out for suitable plants. It is best to look for plants with
long leaves like Pandanus leaves. For example, Pandanus leaves can grow up to a meter
or more in length.
Then it is just a matter of breaking the leaves open and seeing if there is any fibers in
them, separating those fibers out and then just doing this basic weave technique of taking
away, bring it back, taking away, bring it back, taking away, bring it back.
So as you go for a walk out of your door, ideally start to look for long leaves because then
you have potentially got lot of long fibers and then you don’t have to do as much work to
take those fibers out in order to use them.

Copyright © David Styles 9. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com

 How To 'Splice' Fibers Together
The other part of this technique is what to do when you get towards the end of the fibers.
How do you join fibers together to make a longer piece of cordage?

Well, all you do is to put another strand in where the shortest fiber is about to terminate –
so that you have three strands like overlapping each other instead of two. Then it's just a
matter of twisting those three strands away, bring them back, twisting the away, bringing
them back, twisting them away, bringing them back etc.
What happens is that the additional strand that you have spliced into the cordage will
actually stay lodged in the rope material and you will get quite a nice strong bond where it
has overlapped into the previous two strands.
So that is the essence of making cordage – of making rope if you are in a survival
situation.

Copyright © David Styles 10. www.DeepNatureMentoring.com