Tomahawks and Tomahawk Throwing

n.b. click on images for detail

The tomahawk or hawk is a tool and weapon most associated with the frontiersmen and Native Americans of North America in the 18th and 19th Centuries. A superb tool for everyday cutting and chopping tasks as well as a deadly weapon in close quarter combat, the tomahawk is to me an iconic symbol of the pioneering Wild West and wilderness adventure.

A hammer hawk from the Slasinski Foundry in a hawk block
improvised from a dead stump in the woods.

A typical hawk has a blade with a cutting edge or bit of two and a half to four inches and a weight of around a pound to a pound and a half not including the handle though some can be lighter or heavier. Handles are straight, egg shaped in cross section and made of hickory or ash, ideally with the grain of the wood running from bit to poll, or better still, made from the round as I often do using coppice ash. Handle length varies between 15 and 20 inches with my hawk handles being around 19 inches which is my personal preference.

The best tomahawks are hand forged. However genuine blacksmiths capable of forging a hawk blade of the quality above are very rare, (rather like genuinely traditional coracle makers in fact).

As hawks are designed to be thrown their handles lack the heel of a conventional hatchet or hand axe. As a skilled regular user of various edged hand tools I have never found straight axe handles to be a significant problem with practical application in the wilderness provided they are thick enough. Also unlike most conventional axes, hawks are shafted downwards like a pickaxe with the whole shaft having to pass through the slightly tapered eye of the blade until it fits snugly with a tap against a tree.

Blade design varies considerably too. My personal preference for both practical and aesthetic reasons are the hammer hawk designs which, as the name suggests, have hammer polls. There is also the spike hawk, a fighting design popular in the 18th Century which has a sturdy sharpened spike which also makes a handy pick in the backwoods. Some hawks have poll pipe bowls and hollow handles to allow the hawk to be filled with tobacco and smoked. These are often very decorative, originally for ceremonial purposes, and are called pipe hawks.

Perhaps the commonest type of hawk is that often referred to as a trade blade which has only a primary blade and a rounded poll without any of the three afore mentioned appendages. However hammer, spike and pipe tomahawks were also widely traded.

Some of my own hawks in various stages of completion, (I often make my own handles and sheaths).

Throwing the tomahawk may superficially seem aggressive to a none outdoorsman, but in reality, a calm almost meditational state of mind is needed to throw a hawk well.  Certainly, the degree of accuracy I am for does not seem possible if the mind is agitated or elsewhere.  Indeed, the mental discipline required for accurate hawk throwing is akin to that required in instinctive primitive archery which my own tomahawk throwing complements.  Practically, (as I refuse to use firearms) the hawk can be carried along with the bow for hunting or in defence against dangerous animals in serious extended wilderness survival situations.  Personally, I would be more concerned about aggressive wildlife of the two legged variety in the average town centre on a Saturday night than creatures such as bears and rutting bull moose in the wilderness.  Animals are seldom aggressive when the space and respect they deserve and despite some close encounters, biting insects remain the only real animal problem I have faced so far in wilderness areas. Therefore in reality, I primarily carry the hawk for chopping and hammering tasks either in conjunction with or as an alternative to the parang.

The hawk throwing target is usually referred to as a hawk board or block and in its simplest form need be nothing more than a suitable dead tree or stump out in the woods on which dead leaves, pine cones, conkers and other small naturally found blade friendly objects can be pegged to or suspended from to give something smaller to aim at to focus concentration. Under no circumstances should living trees be thrown at, nor for that matter, dead trees that are being used as nests and homes by birds and mammals. Reverence and respect for the natural world is paramount and should be second nature to the true outdoorsman.

Tomahawks in apples. Left is a slightly under rotated "Trail Hawk"
by American knife company, "Cold Steel", right a reproduction
pipe hawk converted into a hammer hawk by me using a brass
plug in the pipe bowl.

A more formal hawk board can be made from a disk of soft wood 6 inches thick and at least a foot in diameter supported on three legs at about four feet high on which small paper targets and playing cards can be stuck as targets.

Hawks in a hawk board. I did not make this board thick enough and it was destroyed pretty quickly by the blades. The flared hawk in the centre is a converted hatchet from a DIY store that I re-handled and wrapped to make it throw compatible.

A hawk block can also be made up from pieces of thick scrap soft wood joined together with sturdy wooden dowls secured with wooden wedges and set up on legs buried in the ground. Supporting struts can also be added to the rear if necessary. The important thing is that no metal in the form of screws, nails and bolts etc should be present to prevent damage to the blades. Similarly I do not recommend trying to throw one hawk too close to another especially when learning and it is generally sensible to have only one hawk in the block at any one time. Practice hawks need to be kept sharp but they do not need the razor edges of dedicated wilderness tool blades.

Whether throwing alone or in the company of others, safety is a matter of common sense. Obviously no one should be behind the target whilst throwing is in progress. Only one person should throw at a time with anybody else present being well behind the thrower. Also be aware that hawks can deflect off the block or even sometimes bounce back with a poor throw, something that becomes less of a risk with time and practice.

Outdoorsman Richard J. Taylor, (me) throwing the tomahawk.
Note hand grip. A well thrown hawk is capable of splitting the
skull of a charging large animal, (Not something I intend or
expect to happen, even in Alaska).

Areas of dense vegetation are also best avoided to prevent losing the hawk in the event of a miss or deflection. Very rocky areas also present a risk of damage to hawk blades that miss or deflect from the block.
For me, a tomahawk with a 19 inch handle rotates once every 12 to 15 feet depending on the weight of the blade so 12 to 15 feet is a good starting point when trying to find your own standard throwing distance. If your hawk has a shorter handle you may want to start a little less than 12 feet as it will rotate a little faster than mine.

Pace out your estimated standard distance from the block plus one additional full pace and turn to face the block with your feet shoulder width apart.

Focus on the target whilst lifting the throwing arm with the hawk gripped in a manner akin to using a small hammer. As you lift the hawk past your head begin stepping through with the opposite leg to your throwing arm. Bring the hawk quickly forward past your head and release the hawk naturally at the target, without snatching or twisting the wrist, at the point immediately after completion of the step through.

Direct hit! The suspended conker, (my preferred target nowadays) has been cleaved from the string! This hammer hawk was hand forged locally before finishing by me.

In theory the hawk will make one complete turn and stick in the block with the handle pointing downwards. In practice you may find that the hawk either over rotates and strikes the block with the top of the handle or even the poll, or under rotates and strikes the block with the bottom or grip end of the handle. This may cause the handle to loosen in the eye if the blade has not been secured by binding, a situation remedied by tapping the top of the handle against the block to re-tighten the head.

Blade under or over rotation can be remedied by stepping further back or forward at your initial throwing line as necessary. Once you have found your standard throwing distance and can get the hawk to stick in the block repeatedly it then becomes a matter of time and dedication to achieve accuracy. Eventually you will be able to compensate for being inside or outside your throwing distance by regulating throw speed and release.

Throwing hawk by swordsmith and friend, Rob Miller. Handle in coppice ash by Richard J. Taylor, (me). This hawk is razor sharp with superb edge retention.

By multiplying your standard distance, the hawk can be thrown at greater ranges but here trajectory needs to be considered too and even the smallest error at the throwing line is greatly magnified at the hawk block. It is far better to be deadly accurate at your standard distance than just OK at greater range. A hawk can also be reverse thrown by adding or subtracting a half distance and throwing the hawk poll first to cause it to stick in the block handle upwards. I regard this as a novelty throw.

Personally I find tomahawk throwing relaxing, fun and safe. It is possibly more challenging than archery even and certainly more pragmatic than darts in my opinion.

A Slasinski hammer hawk fitted with one of my own handles and a self made sheath and belt frog. The frog enables the hawk to be safely carried throw or tool ready on the belt without need for the sheath which also has its own belt loops on the reverse.

Best results are obtained by practicing little and often rather than infrequent binge practice. I often practice as a break from other outdoor activities in the woods but if you are able to set up a people and hawk safe throwing range in your garden then as little as 20 minutes practice daily over a cup of tea should soon start producing results. At the time of writing, I am not aware of any organized competative tomahawk throwing in the UK but it certainly seems to be popular amongst outdoor enthusiasts and reenactors at rendezvous events in the USA.