OMAHA BOW AND ARROW MAKERS—LA FLESCHE 493 
inserting them in the slits, and fastening them with glued sinew, took 
the old man but a short time to finish. 
Quail then, speaking to my father, said: “ My son, I am about to 
trim the feathers, will you have the leaves (webs) narrow or wide?” 
“Make them narrow,” my father replied. “Ah!” the old man 
remarked, “I see you know the principle, the narrow leaves hold 
the arrow steady, the broad leaves will cause the arrow to make an 
undulating movement as it takes its flight.” 
The old man sharpened his knife very carefully, laid an arrow, 
nock toward him, along the edge of a board so that the web of the 
feather lapped over the edge; he then trimmed the web, giving it a 
straight line. All the other webs he treated in the same manner. 
Again addressing my father, the old man said: “ What about the 
marking, my son?” “ Black on the shaft,” my father replied, “ the 
length of a finger joint, along the lower part of the feather, and the 
upper part red, to the nock.” “Night and day,” the old man re- 
marked, “the symbol of precision.” From a small package the 
arrow-maker poured into the shell of a fresh water mussel the black 
coloring material, and from another package he poured into another 
shell the red pigment. Into these shells he poured glue water and 
stirred the mixture with a stick. Then using the tip of his index 
finger for a painting brush he first put on the black paint, and then 
the red. When the paint, which had a glossy appearance, had dried, 
the old man gathered the arrows together in a bunch and handed 
them to my father, who caressed them by passing his hands. over 
them; then, with a pleased expression he lifted the arrows up and 
said to me: “ Look at these, my son, and let me tell you that a neatly 
finished arrow is the pride of a good archer!” A smile rippled over 
the wrinkled face of the arrow-maker, as he nodded his head with 
pleasure at the compliment. 
The bow and the arrow figure prominently in the religious rites 
of some of the plains tribes of the American Indians. In Osage 
mythology, the bow was the gift of the moon to the people, and the 
arrow a gift from the sun, taken from one of its rays. In three of 
the tribal rituals of the Osage, two arrows, one painted black to 
represent the night, and the other red, to represent day, are set in 
flight (figuratively), by a bow also painted black and red, toward the 
setting sun. These two arrows, thus set in flight at an initiation of 
a candidate into the mysteries of certain tribal rites, not only sym- 
bolize the endless recurrence of night and day, but the flight of these 
mystic arrows is also equivalent to the Initiator saying to the candi- 
date: “ Your life, represented by your descendants, shall be as the 
night and day, endlessly recurring. Among the Omaha tribe seven 
arrows were used as symbols in an annual ceremony. Each gens of 
