HISTORY OF THE CROSSBOW— WILBUR 437 



pine Islands, Cambodia, the Nicobar Islands, China, and Siberia; 

 from the West are two examples from Germany and a modern, 

 sporting crossbow of unknown origin. 



In the southeastern tip of Asia, an ethnological backwash of the 

 continent, primitive peoples still use the crossbow extensively in 

 hunting and warfare. This wild region, extending from Bengal in 

 eastern India through Assam, Burma, Siam, and French Indo- 

 China, and reaching up into the southwestern Provinces of China 

 proper, is one of the last strongholds of the primitive way of life. 

 To the north lies China, w^here the crossbow has been continuously 

 known for more than 2,000 years and where it had a remarkable de- 

 velopment as an engine of war. From China it passed into Korea, 

 then into Japan, but neither country accepted it wholeheartedly in 

 preference to the bow. The Yakut, Lamut, Tungus, Yukaghir, 

 Koryak, and Chukchee peoples of Siberia know it as a weapon and 

 a toy, but use it primarily as a trap. Finally, those mysterious peo- 

 ple, the Ainu, isolated in the northern tip of Japan, know it only 

 for trapping game. In the sixteenth century it was used in Central 

 Asia and northern India by the Persians. The Roman legions em- 

 ployed it in the fourth century A. D. In all continental European 

 armies, from about 1200 to 1500, it was used extensively until gun- 

 powder made it obsolete for warfare. Far from its true home the 

 crossbow was also adopted in West Africa, Greenland, and Alaska. 



Many unknown gaps still exist in the history of the crossbow's 

 wide diffusion from whatever center first specialized it as an efficient 

 weapon for hunting and warfare. 



SPECIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 



(Only such items as deal at some length with crossbows, siege engines, 

 or bow-traps are listed.) 

 Balfour, Henet. 



1910. The origin of west African crossbows. Smithsonian Ann. Rep., 1910, 



pp. 635-650, 1 pi., 7 figs. 

 Beveridge, H. 



1911. Oriental crossbows. Asiatic Quart. Rev., ser. 3, vol. 32, pp. 344-348. 

 Clephan, Robert Coltman. 



1903. Notes on Roman and medieval military engines, etc. Archaeologia 

 Aeliana, vol. 24, pp. 60-114. 



FORKE. 



1896. Ueber die chinesiche Armbrust. Zeitschr. Ethnol., vol. 28, pp. 272- 

 279, 11 figs. 



GOHLKH, W. 



19U9-11. Das Geschiitzwesen des Altertums und des Mittelalters. Zeitschr. 

 hist. Waffen- u. Kostiimkunde, vol. 5, pp. 193-199, 291-298, 354- 

 363, 379-393, illus. 

 Harada, Yoshito ; Komai, Kazuchika. 



1932. Chinese antiquities. Pt, 1, Arms and armor. Acad. Orient. Culture, 

 Tokyo Inst., Tokyo. 



