Thuat - sewing needle

A Thuat is a needle made from fishbones of Lykópen. The fish is only known to exist in the freshwaterlake Lyni, that is near the Mynsdoed Gallina. Whilst most fishbone needles tend to break easily near the head of the needle, to which you put the thread through, a Thuat is more strong, yet the difficulty in making the hole in the fishbone is the very tricky to do. First, it needs to be under water while being drilled carefully, this is for not to have dust inhaled, as well as making it cool while drilling. If the drill turns slightly during the process, it will make the head weaker and thus break easily. Secondly, at the same time you need to use a slightly more pressure on the drill, compared to other needles made from fishbone, making the balance of making the hole a lot more difficult.

Cooking the fish is important to make the fishbone suitable for making into a needle, if the fish is smoked, then the bones will not be as strong as it would be during the cooking process. It is not all the bones in the fish that can be used for needles, only the strongest of them.

A Thuat is approximately 4 cm in lenght, and 0.6 mm at its thickest point - being the head. Though the Thuat is thicker than most sewing needles, it can still create fine patterns that is suitable for making the outline of a map on fabric, though still being able to see the holes it creates between the threads of weaving in the fabric, and therefore the Bucath have made special form for stitching in order to hide the larger holes.

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Significance

The Thuat is very important for the culture of the Bucath. It is part of their coming of age ritual, called First Flight Ceremony, and marking the Bucath as mapmakers. Though Bucath trades their maps mostly for other needles and other things, they still use the Thuat to make the outline of the map as per tradition.

Item type

Tool

Related ethnicities

• Bucath

Rarity

The Thuat is only known to be made by the Harawyrs of Magaun, also called Bucath. Therefore the needle itself is rather rare, but most Dynbodaul and Ghrefeim prefers to use needles made by metal, though they are quite expensive. No other ethnicity seems to be interested in the Thuat, maybe not many knows of it, and therefore it has not been sought after.. yet.