INTRODUCTION NY gø № 
T is only of late years — and in some cases but quite recently — 
I that the gun has superseded the bow among the Eskimo, so that 
it is now hardly anywhere in use save among some few of the most 
sequestered tribes in the central regions. Formerly it was used for 
the hunting of all kinds of land animals, from hare and ptarmigan to 
big game such as bear and musk ox, being chiefly employed, however, 
in the pursuit of reindeer — not from any particular suitability to 
this branch of the chase, as opposed to others, but because reindeer 
hunting forms, with the salmon fishing, the typical summer occupa- 
tion of the Eskimo. And STEENSBY’s! investigations have shown, that 
this summer hunting of the Eskimo is directly derived from that of 
the Indians, so that the bow must in consequence be regarded as one 
of the very oldest elements in Eskimo culture, where it has probably 
existed from earliest times in more or less the same form as found 
until our own day among certain of the eastern tribes. 
The bow can be either “compound” or “backed’”, to use the terms 
employed by F.v. LuscHan а.о. (“composite” by BALFOUR)?. It was without 
doubt originally formed on the Asiatic model, in the same manner as the 
sinew-lined bows found farther south in North America®; it is hardly 
likely, however, that there can here be any question of direct trans- 
mission from the Old World. The developement is, in all probability, 
to be associated with certain peculiar conditions in the early stages 
of Eskimo culture; these need not, however, be further treated here. 
The backed bow is found again in Guiana, but is not known among 
any other peoples in North America except as an imitation of the Eskimo 
model, for Mason’s description (with reference to FRANKLIN) of an 
1 STEENSBY, Orig. Esk. Cult. р. 184 f. 
2 LuscHAN, p. 222. — BALFOUR, p. 220. — The term ‘‘composite” was created 
by General Pitt Rivers. 
3 RATzEL is of opinion that all bows in North America are of Asiatic origin, 
saying (p. 332): “dort hat sich keine ächt einheimische Form nördlich vom 
Isthmus von Tehuantepec erhalten... This is of course going very much 
too far, if a domestic type is to be understood as a type developed without 
influence from the compound Asiatic bow. 
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