296 SAVAGE WEAPONS AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. 



1-10. — Paraguayan arrows. 



striiig with both hands and lets fly the lighted arrows one after the other, 



with considerable rapidity. The malleolus of the Eoinans was a large 



missile like a distaff with an arrow-point; 

 the cage of the distaff was filled with tow 

 steeped in pitch. It was lighted before being 

 discharged, and it was intended that the ar- 

 row should penetrate the wooden object or 

 thatch and hold it while the incendiary ma- 

 terial should set tire to the building. 



The Fuegian bow is strung with twisted 

 sinews ; the arrow is of hard wood and has a 

 notch in the end, holding a piece of flint or 

 obsidian, which comes off in the wound. 



We may conclude this account of savage 

 weapons by some references to the cross-bow. 

 This was shown in the Norwegian Department 

 in the Main Building, and is a remnant of nie- 

 direval times. The instrument, however, is 



found in use in several parts of the world, and some of the African and 



Asiatic examples show more ingenuity than the European weapons with 



which we are more familiar. 

 The Norwegian cross-bow, Fig. 147, has a stock 30 inches long with a 



24-inch powerful steel bow. The stock is handsomely inlaid with ivory; 



the string is a covered 



cord, and the boltis shown 



in its groove. The Roman 



scorpio was perhaps the 



oldest instrument of the 



kind on record, and was 



used to discharge stones, 



plummets, and arrows. 



We find cross-bows among 



the Fans of the Gaboons 



in Western Africa; the 



Mishni, a tribe of Assam 



in Eastern India 



Fig. 147. — Norwegian crossbow. 



the Nicobar Islanders'-' 44 ; the Chinese and the Japan- 



cse- 



The cross-bow of the fans is 5 feet long and has a very strong bow l» 

 feel long, which is bent by holding it with the feet while both hands 

 strain the string into the notch. The string is thrust out of the notch 

 by a clumsily ingenious arrangement. The shaft is split so that the for- 

 ward end of the lower portion has a limited motion up and down, the 

 split terminating a1 a point a little forward of the string-notch. To the 

 lowerportion is attached a peg which extends upward through a hole 

 to thrust the string out of the notch. A trigger-pin lies in the split of 

 the shafl and holds the portions apart so that the string can lie in the 



"*Wood 3 vol. ii, p. 220. M»Siebold'H " Nippon," vol ii, PL 5 bis. 



