SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 585 



BLOWGUNS 



Speaking of the Choctaw, Bossu says that the boys 



are very skilful in the use of the blowgun. It is made of a cane about seven feet 

 long, into which they put a little arrow provided with thistle-down, and when 

 they see something [which they want to hit] they blow into it, and they often 

 kill small birds. (Bossu, 1768, vol. 2, p. 103.) 



Romans, who visited the Choctaw a few years later, describes the 

 use of the blowgun as follows : 



The young savages also use a very strait cane, eight or nine feet long, cleared 

 of its inward divisions of the joints ; in this they put a small arrow, whose one 

 end is covered one third of the whole length with cotton or something similar 

 to it: this they hold nearest their mouth and blow it so expertly as seldom to 

 miss a mark fifteen or twenty yards off and that so violently as to kill squirrils and 

 birds therewith ; with this instrument they often plague dogs and other animals 

 according to the innate disposition to cruelty of all savages, being encouraged 

 to take a delight in torturing any poor animal that has the misfortune to fall 

 into their hands. (Romans, 1775, p. 77.) 



In 1761 Timberlake observed that the Cherokee children 



at eight or ten years old, are very expert at killing [small animals and birds] 

 with a sarbacan, or hollow^ cane, through which they blow a small dart, whose 

 weakness obliges them to shoot at the eye of the larger sort of prey, which 

 they seldom miss. (Timberlake, Williams ed., 1927, p. 72.) 



Bushnell found a single blowgun in use among the Choctaw of 

 Bayou Lacomb, La. : 



The blowgun (kaklu'mpa) is about 7 feet in length; it is mac'e of a single 

 piece of cane {Arundinaria macrosperma; Choctaw uske), formed into a tube 

 by perforation of the joints, \vhieh was given a smooth bore of uniform diameter 

 throughout. The darts {shuma'nie) are made of either small, slender canes 

 or pieces of hard yellow pine, sharpened at one end; they are from 15 to 18 

 inches in length. The lower end is wrapped for a distance of 4 or 5 inches 

 with a narrow band of cloth having a frayed edge, or a piece of soft tanned 

 skin is used. The effect of this band is to expand and fill the bore of the gun, 

 a result that could not possibly be secured by the use of feathers, as in the 

 case of ordinary arrows. (Bushnell, 1909 a, p. 18.)^° 



Among the mixed-blood Houma Indians near the mouth of the 

 Mississippi a compound, two-piece blowgun is in use, and a specimen 

 is in the collection of the Museum of the American Indian. It is 

 suspected that these were owing to late West Indian or South Ameri- 

 can influence. (But cf. statement by Speck's Taskigi informant, p. 

 586.) 



Instead of thistledown, the Chitimacha sometimes "feathered" 

 their blowgun arrows with the down of a plant called locally "fire- 

 weed," and they were twisted like those of the Houma, presenting 

 an analogy to rifling in firearms. 



^ Byington, 1915, has uski lumpa instead of kaklu'mpa. 



