648 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1910. 



steel lever which held and released the revolving catch or " nut " of 

 the typical medieval and later European crossbows. This may be so, 

 but there is undoubtedly a greater resemblance to the divided stock 

 (with peg-and-notch release) than to the stock with lever and " nut " 

 mechanism, and there is no suggestion of a revolving " nut " in the 

 simple transverse groove which appears to represent a plain notch 

 for the bowstring. Moreover, when a lever was employed this neces- 

 sarily did not extend farther forward than the catch which held the 

 bowstring, whereas, in the crossbow represented upon the plaque, 

 the union of lower and upper limbs is placed considerably in front 

 of the notch, as is the case in all the crossbows having divided 

 stocks — a significant fact. It has occurred to me that the lever of 

 the better-known European crossbows may itself have been sug- 

 gested by and derived from the movable lower limb of the ruder 

 types. The muscular action required to effect the release is in both 

 cases the same, viz, a squeezing together of the two parts of the 

 stock in the one case, and of the lever and stock in the other; the 

 revolving wheel-like " nut " in the latter form having supplanted 

 the more sluggish thrusting-peg action of the former. But this is 

 by the way. The combination in many of the African crossbows 

 of a bow apparently modeled upon a steel original, with a sunple 

 divided stock, may thus perhaps be explained b}^ the evidence as to 

 the introduction by Eurojieans of a crossbow in which these char- 

 acters are actually combined, as recorded upon the bronze plaque 

 from Benin. 



One can not readily determine which of the European peoples may 

 have first introduced the crossbow with divided stock into Africa. 

 This primitive form, now restricted to a very limited area in Nor- 

 way, was probably at one time far more widely distributed over 

 Europe, and the Portuguese may quite well have known and used 

 this type, and have carried it with them to West Africa; but the 

 probability lies, perhaps, rather with the Danes or the Dutch, who 

 may be regarded as more likely to have employed a form which we 

 know to have been associated with Scandinavia. In this case the 

 introduction would not have taken place earlier than the later por- 

 tion of the fifteenth century. The European figures upon the Benin 

 bronzes appear for the most part to belong to the sixteenth century, 

 and the Beninese bronze founders were sufficiently familiar with 

 the European crossbow to represent it with wonderful accuracy in 

 matters even of detail. May we not regard it as probable that the 

 weapon was first adopted in the sixteenth century by the natives of 

 Nigeria, who to this day are using a hinged form of crossbow with 

 divided stock, and that from this region the weapon was dispersed, 

 varying somewhat in detail as its range extended farther from the 

 original center, and becoming simplified to some slight extent as it 



