428 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1936 



and wood ; and the final development, produced in Europe, is a great 

 steel arc resembling a single carriage spring (pis. 4, 5). Again, the 

 stock may be only a plain piece of wood, with or without a groove, on 

 which the arrow rests. Sometimes it is cut away to avoid friction, 

 as in pellet crossbows; and occasionally it is tubular, like a gun 

 barrel. 



Some primitive people can draw their crossbows with the hands 

 alone, but in the powerful specimen from Cambodia (pi. 1, fig. 1) 

 the native must put his feet against the concave side of the bowstave 

 and strain at the string with all the muscular force of his arms, legs, 

 and back. So powerful did the medieval crossbow become, however, 

 that it could only be drawn by means of some extra mechanical de- 

 vice, sometimes resembling an automobile ratchet jack (pi. 5, fig. 2). 



ORIGIN 



The suggested origin of the crossbow deserving most consideration 

 is the hypothesis that it developed from the self-acting bow-trap. 

 This method of shooting animals is more widespread than the cross- 

 bow itself, being found in Asia, Europe, and Africa, from which 

 latter continent it was brought by Negroes to America. The bow 

 is set up horizontally on a support near some game trail. The prob- 

 lem is to keep the string drawn back until an animal walks into 

 the trap. One common method is to have a string-catch attached 

 to a stock set at right angles to the bow. Then when an animal dis- 

 turbs the bait or passes in front of the bow it jerks a string connected 

 to a trigger, thus firing the arrow at itself.* 



Another form of the crossbow trap is illustrated on plate 2, where 

 an Ainu specimen and one from Chinese Turkestan are shown. These 

 are crude devices, but the three essential elements of bow, stock, and 

 string-catch immediately mark them as a variety of the crossbow. 

 The arrow does not leave the bow ; rather, it pierces or stuns an ani- 

 mal which has set off the trigger while walking into the trap. 



There is no real evidence, however, that the crossbow did actually 

 develop from the bow-trap, and so the suggestion must remain only 

 an hypothesis. It is to history and archeology that we must turn 

 for dependable information concerning the early use and develop- 

 ment of the crossbow after it had been specialized. 



THE CROSSBOW IN CHINA 



From China comes our earliest positive information. This rich 

 field for historical and archeological investigation presents direct 

 evidence for the crossbow during the second half of the third cen- 



» For a good article dealing with bow-traps see : Horwitz, Uber die Konstruktion von 

 Fallen und Selbstscbtissen. 



