MATERIAL CULT! RE 25 



practised. In modern times swift horses were used to 

 bring the rider in range when he shot down the fleeing 

 beasts. But before horses were known the cooperative 

 method must have prevailed. 



Hunting Implements. The implements used for 



killing buffalo were not readily displaced by guns. 

 Bows and arrows were used long after guns were com- 

 mon. In fact, pioneers maintain that at close range 

 the rapidity and precision of the bow was only to be 

 excelled by the repeating rifle, a weapon developed in 

 the 70's. Even so, the bow was not entirely discarded 

 until the buffalo became extinct. The bows were of 

 two general types; the plain wooden bow, and the 

 sinew-backed, or compound bow. It is generally held 

 that the tribes east of the Mississippi River used the 

 simple wooden bow while those on the Pacific Coast 

 used the sinew-backed type. It is quite natural, there- 

 fore, that among the Plains tribes, we should find both 

 types in general use and that the sinew-backed was 

 more common among the Shoshoni and other Plateau 

 tribes. 



Some curious bows were made from mountain sheep 

 horn backed with sinew, a fine example of which is to 

 be seen in the Xez Perce collection (Fig. 1). The 

 Crow, Hidatsa, and Mandan sometimes used a bow 

 of elkhorn, probably one of the finest examples of 

 Indian workmanship: "They take a large horn or 

 prong, and saw a slice off each side of it; these slices 

 are then filed or rubbed down until the flat sides fit 

 nicely together, when they are glued and wrapped at 



