ORIGIN OF WEST AFRICAN CROSSBOWS BALFOUR. 



639 



An interesting native crossbow (fig. 6) was presented by Capt. 

 Latherington in 1832 to the Scarborough Museum, and is said to 

 have been obtained on the " South coast of Benin " and to have be- 

 longed originally to a chief of the Mandingo tribe. 1 It is of dark- 

 red brown and hard wood, polished. The bow is curved, 27 inches 

 long and If inches wide at the center, tapering to 1 inch at the ends, 

 which terminate in projections for the bowstring. The " back " is 

 convex, the " belly " flat, and the edges are squared. The bow is 

 passed through a rectangular hole in the thickened end of the stock 

 and is fixed with wedges driven in from opposite sides. The stock 

 is 24 inches in length, and consists of two parts (fig. 6, c). The 

 upper part extends in one piece the full length of the stock, of which 

 it forms the major part. The lower part consists of a separate bar 

 or limb, fitting closely underneath the stock and butting against a 

 sloping shoulder. A short distance behind the shoulder there is a 



fl 



ID 



c. 



Fig. 6. — Crossbow of the Mandingo tribe, " S. coast of Benin," length 24 inches. Col- 

 lected by Capt. Latherington. Scarboro' Museum. (o=upper surface ; 6=lower sur- 

 face ; c=side view.) 



transverse hole through the upper limb, and a string loop passing 

 through this embraces the lower limb and keeps it in its place, form- 

 ing also a kind of rudimentary hinge uniting the two limbs in front 

 and allowing their hinder ends to separate. The " release " is iden- 

 tical with that of the Fan crossbows, being effected with a notch-and- 

 peg mechanism of precisely similar form. An arrow groove is also 

 seen in this form (fig. 6, a). The principal difference between the 

 Mandingo and the Fan types lies in the latter having a split stock 

 while the former has the stock in two separate pieces hinged 

 together. 



In the Yoruba country the crossbow is used among some Yoruba- 

 speaking tribes in conjunction with the longbow, 2 and a local proverb 

 referring to them has been recorded by Bishop Crowther of the 



1 1 am indebted to Dr. John Irving, of Scarborough, for details and sketches of this 

 specimen. 



a Gov. Moloney, Journ. Anthrop. Inst., vol. 19, 1890, p. 213. 



