NORTH AMERICAN BOWS, ARROWS, AND QUIVERS. 673 



chii)piiig would be placed in bis sack, aud when enough were collected 

 he would take tliein to his lodge to fashion. Plolding the arrow, spear, 

 or knife piece in his hand, he would chip carefully with another flint or 

 iron rock, or placing- the sharp edge against the projecting piece or par- 

 ticle to be removed, being carelul in only chipjiing or forcing off sufficient 

 to make the stone in proper shape, with sharp edge and point. They 

 made the grooves in war clubs, axes, hammers, or bone breakers by 

 constant pecking. 



"There was another kind of arrow point they made of which I never 

 heard before, .and that was out of the tront part of the foreleg of an 

 elk, between fetlock and knee joint. They would take that bone and 

 break it, and slivers that would answer were made into arrow points 

 by grinding them on a stone. They make a good arrow point, but not 

 so strong as the flint points. 



"The stone arrow points were each separately bound with sinews to 

 protect them from breaking even in the quiver, and the arrows were 

 unwrapped before starting after a herd of buffalo."* 



The unwrapping of the sinew before shooting is quite new testimony, 

 but Mr. Allen has lived on the frontier many years in Montana. 



"Among the plains Indians," says Dodge "a good bow takes a long 

 time and much labor in its construction. The best wood is the osage 

 orange {'bois (Van-'' of the old French trappers, corrupted into 'bow 

 dark' by plains Ame^ncaus). This wood grows in comparatively a lim- 

 ited area of countrj^, and long journeys are sometimes made to obtain 

 it. Only the best are selected, straight, aud as free as possible from 

 knots. The seasoning i)rocess is slow and very thorough. A little 

 cutting, shaping, and scraping with knife or piece of glass, then a hard 

 rubbing wi:h buffalo fat or brains, and the stick is put aside in a warm 

 place, to bt^ worked at again in a few days or 'weeks. A good bow 

 with fair usage will last many years, but it is liable to be broken at 

 any time by accident. Each warrior, therefore, possesses several sticks 

 of bow wood in various stages of completion. 



"The strings are formed of closely-twisted fibers of the sinews of 

 animals. These sinews are cut out their full length. Each is then sub- 

 divided longitudinally into stijings, and these picked and re-picked into 

 fibers as fine as hair and as long as possible. With the rude means at 

 their disposal it requires no little skill so to put and twist these fibers 

 together as to form a string perfectly round and of precisely the same 

 size and tension from end to end. 



"The arrows require in the aggregate much more labor than the 

 bow. Any hard, tough, straight-grained wood is used. It is scraped 

 to proper size and shape, and must be perfectly round. The head is 

 either of stone or iron — of late years almost exclusively of iron, for stone 

 of the necessary hardness is extremely difficult to work, and twenty or 

 more stones ate spoiled or broken for each arrow-head made. 



"Under the most favorable circumstances, however, the most skill- 

 ful Indian workman can not hope to complete more than a single arrow 

 in a hard day's work. In a short fight, or an exciting dash after game, 

 he will expend as many arrows as will keep him busily at work for a 

 month to replace.! 



"The constructive industry of the men was confined princiivally to 

 the making of arms, bows, arrows, shields, and spears. These were all 

 objects in which they took great pride. The favorite material for bows 



* Letter from I. Allen, Stillwater, Mont, 

 t Dodge, Plains of the Great West, Putuam, 1877, pp. 3-18, 3-19. 

 m, 93 43 



