Indian Archery

WHILE this chapter may be interesting to some, it has been found necessary to reserve it as a conclusion because an earlier use would have interrupted the sequence of the chain of thought.

When the white man first landed on our shores, he found the natives armed with bows and arrows. No one seems to know how long the Indian had known the bow, but it must have been a very long time. We have made reference to Folsom man—whoever he was—and his arrow points that were contemporary with the mammoth, the giant slot hand the saber tooth tiger; but, for lack of space, we will ha veto pass him by, also the Basket Weavers, the Shell Mound men and the Mound Builders, interesting though they be ,and confine our remarks to those tribes known to our fathers. The Indian was far advanced in neolithic culture when we first knew him; he was on the verge of the age of metals.Many tribes knew agriculture but, except for the dog, they had not domesticated animals. His major weapons consisted of stone tipped spears, stone axes or tomahawks and bow sand arrows.

The Native American had reached a state of great efficiency in making archery tackle. He incorporated many of the fundamental principles which are used by our best bowyer's; he had, in some instances, made and used glue. He had reached high degree of efficiency in pressure flaking by which he was able to produce some excellent arrow points. He had mastered the principle and the art of fletching, using three feathers to the arrow. His proficiency in working wood was hampered by the lack of adequate tools but he managed to fashion bows that were serviceable, bows that incorporated some of the technique that our fathers had known in Europe. It is most difficult to find an old Indian bow. All old wooden items have a way of disappearing. Of the hundreds of thousands of bows used in England, when the bow was weapon of war, only two authentic specimens are preserved today. It has not been very long ago—within the lifetime of men still living—that the Indian was making and using bows.Yet, when one tries to find a genuine Indian bow he has difficult task. The Department of Anthropology of the University of California has the best known collection. Eastern Museums are sadly lacking in these old weapons. But, from the meager available supply, we are able to give a fairly accurate picture of the bows and arrows as used by the red men when this land was being colonized.

INDIAN BOWS

Bows made and used by the Indians were very short in comparison to the English long bow; they were from 42 inches to rarely ever longer than 48 inches. They were made from such woods as their region produced. In the East, hickory and ash were their choice; the Plains tribes use dosage orange; the mountain and desert tribes used juniper and mesquite; the western tribes used various woods common to that region which included some yew.

As a rule, a sapling or a limb was split and allowed to season after which it was fashioned into a bow with wide thin limbs. Some extra wood was left in the region of the handle but not enough to give the bow rigidity at that point; they all seemed to bend in the handle section which made them sluggish in cast and a harsh bow to shoot. On the other hand, if their bows had been rigid in the handle region it would have been necessary to make the bows longer.