NavList:

It does sound a little awkward to project the thumb direction onto the horizontal plane---you'd almost need an assistant to walk in front of you and sight along the thumb.  One way to single-handedly (so to speak) get a visual horizon reference might be this:  use the outstretched hand to star-hop from Mintaka to the Pole.  Fully extended, my thumb-tip-to-little-finger-tip angle is about 22 degrees.  So, starting from Mintaka, four hops and a smidgen should take me to the Pole (which will be below the horizon for southern latitudes of course).  Once there, project down/up to the horizon and use nearby stars to get a visual reference for "temporary North".  There will be some accumulation of error, since it might be hard to maintain the hops in the same direction, but it might still be better than sighting along a short and bent thumb that's not at 90 degrees to the index finger anyway.  I'll give it a try tonight.