580 BUREiAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll. 137 



that our best accounts of the bow technique come from the earliest 

 narratives. In the narrative of the Fidalgo of Elvas, we read : 



Those people are so warlike and so quick that they make no account of foot- 

 soldiers ; for if these go for them, they flee, and when their adversaries turn their 

 backs they are immediately on them. The farthest they flee is the distance of 

 an arrow shot. They are never quiet but always running and crossing from 

 one side to another so that the crossbows or the arquebuses can not be aimed 

 at them ; and before a crossbov^man can fire a shot, an Indian can shoot three or 

 four arrows, and very seldom does he miss what he shoots at. If the arrow does 

 not find armor, it penetrates as deeply as a crossbow . . . generally when [the 

 stone-pointed arrows] strike against armor, they break off at the place where 

 they [i. e., the points] are fastened on. Those of cane split and enter through 

 the links of mail and are more hurtful. (Robertson, 1983, p. 37.) 



However, in describing the fight about the Alibamo fort, Garcilaso 

 (1723, p. 174) states that the flint-pointed arrows did more harm than 

 the rest because, besides their piercing qualities, the sides cut any sur- 

 face that they grazed. Yet he also testifies that at one point west of 

 the Mississippi River, a cane arrow "with the point of the same ma- 

 terial cut obliquely and hardened in the fire" penetrated the leg armor 

 of a horseman, "went through the right thigh, and after going through 

 the tree and pad of the saddle, two or three inches of the arrow passed 

 on and wounded the horse" (Garcilaso, 1723, p. 217). Ranjel relates 

 how a stout ash lance, borne by one of the Spanish cavaliers at the 

 battle of Mabila, was pierced by an arrow as by an auger, and in the 

 battle with the Chickasaw three horses were shot through both shoul- 

 ders (Bourne, 1904, vol. 2, pp. 127, 134). Garcilaso affirms of the 

 Apalachee Indians that 



while a Spaniard was firing one shot and making ready for another, an Indian 

 would shoot six or seven arrows. They are so skillful and ready that they 

 scarcely have discharged one before they have another in the bow. (Garcilaso, 

 1723, p. 73.) 



The force of Indian arrows seems to have become the occasion for 

 some "tall" stories, Garcilaso supplying the following; 



In one of the first skirmishes which the Spaniards had with the Indians of 

 A-palache the maese de campo Luis de Moscoso received an arrow wound in the 

 right side [the arrow] passing through a buckskin jacket and a coat of mall that he 

 wore beneath it, which because it was so highly burnished had cost a hundred 

 and fifty ducats in Spain. The rich men had brought many of these, because 

 they were very highly regarded. The arrow also passed through a quilted doublet 

 and wounded him in such a manner that, entering obliquely, it did not kill him. 

 Amazed at such an unusual shot the Spaniards wished to see just what their 

 highly burnished coats of mail upon which they had depended so much could 

 withstand. On arriving at the pueblo they set up in the plaza one of the baskets 

 which the Indians make of reeds, resembling vintage-baskets, and having chosen 

 the best coat of mail that they had they put it over the basket, which was very 

 firmly woven. Taking off the chains of one of the Apalache Indians they gave 

 him a bow and arrow and ordered him to shoot at the coat of mail, which was 

 fifty paces away. 



