10 
FOREST AND STREAM 
January, 1921 
THE BOW AS A HUNTER S WEAPON 
ALL THE CUNNING AND SAGACITY OF THE SAVAGE IS NEEDED TO SUC- 
CESSFULLY STALK GAME WITH THIS AGE-OLD IMPLEMENT OF THE CHASE 
By VAN ALLEN LYMAN 
T HE recent war, with its revival in 
new and more efficient forms of 
medieval weapons, seems also to 
have awakened the general interest of 
sportsmen in the gun’s predecessor, the 
bow and arrow. 
Four hundred years ago the bow and 
arrow held first place; now it has well 
nigh disappeared from the face of the 
earth as a weapon, except in the hands 
of the few savage peoples remaining, as 
yet, untouched by white man’s influence. 
It was to satisfy an ungratified curi- 
osity on the subject that the writer 
spent on different occasions considera- 
ble time and not a little money on in- 
vestigation of and experimentation with 
the possibilities of archery. As a gun 
crank, target shooter and hunter the 
writer necessarily considered, more or 
less from the viewpoint of one curious 
to know, the bow as compared with the 
firearms of to-day, and to what extent 
a bow could be made to serve practically 
the modern hunter, if at all. 
Several years of traveling and resi- 
dence in different parts of Central 
America gave the writer opportunity to 
see and experiment with native Indian 
bows and arrows. Wherever the Indian 
has been able to obtain firearms, the 
bow has been practically discontinued 
years ago in favor of the gun, usually 
smooth-bore and muzzle-loading. The 
bow is, however, often retained for 
shooting fish and small birds. Central 
American bows seem as a general thing 
to be rather short and doubtless they 
are made this way because a longer bow 
would be objectionable to carry about 
in thick jungle. The wood of which 
they are made varies but is frequently 
some one of the various species of palm. 
The arrows are usually of reed, tipped 
with a heavier wood, often black palm, 
and are not always feathered. 
A VISIT to the Museum of Natural 
History in New York City and a 
later visit to the New National 
Museum in Washington, D. C., incident- 
al to a trip to the “States” gave the 
writer opportunity to acquire still fur- 
ther first hand information, for, through 
the courtesy of Mr. Allen, of the New 
National Museum, whose thoughtful 
courtesy and friendly interest will al- 
ways be pleasantly remembered, he was 
enabled to spend considerable time on 
different occasions investigating and ex- 
perimenting with old Indian weapons. 
The character of these bows varied 
considerably, perhaps the most interest- 
ing point being ingenious methods of in- 
creasing their power and efficiency, and 
this brings us to the subject of the re- 
inforced, or “backed” bow. In its sim- 
plest form this consists of a heavy cord 
strung along the back of the bow (the 
side away from the shooter) and so se- 
cured that it cannot slip off. As the 
bow is bent this reinforcing cord is, of 
course, tightened and the power of the 
bow somewhat increased. Another, and 
better method of re-inforcing bows is, 
to imbed animal sinews or rawhide on 
the back of the bow in glue. The 
sinews are, of course, glued on length- 
wise and the work very neatly done. 
Bows of two kinds of wood, glued to- 
gether, are made to-day by manufac- 
turers of modem archery goods. 
Arrows vary greatly according to 
their place of manufacture and the pur- 
pose for which they are intended. The 
essential thing about an arrow is that 
Ready to pull the bow, quiver hung on 
right side 
the forward end be heavier than the 
rear, i. e., the heavy end goes ahead and 
the lighter end trails behind so there is 
no tendency for the arrow to turn end 
for end in its flight. It will be seen 
that with an arrow of this type feathers 
are not really necessary, though they 
aid in keeping the arrow on a true 
course. In fact, in competitions where 
shooting for distance only is tried and 
accuracy is a minor consideration, un- 
feathered arrows are sometimes used, 
for feathering adds resistance to an 
arrow’s flight through the air and 
slightly retards it. The usual “flight 
arrow,” however, has small feathers. 
However, if an ‘arrow be of equal weight 
throughout its length, or nearly so, 
feathers at the rear are necessary in 
order to preserve its straight course. 
In the highest development of arrows, 
for example those made by regular 
manufacturers of archery goods, such 
feathers are very carefully put on and 
are located to the very best advantage. 
In many of the Indian arrows, however, 
the feathering is often simply one, two 
or three bird feathers, sometimes tail 
feathers, tied to the arrow near its base 
by the quill end, the tip of the arrow 
being left free. A rather crude ar- 
rangement .but it served the purpose 
after a fashion. While feathers were 
usually available, cotton or shreds of 
bark were sometimes used instead. 
The point of an arrow itself has 
taken many forms, depending on the 
purpose for which it was intended. For 
small bird shooting the blow given to a 
bird by an arrow would be sufficient to 
bring it down. It would also be most 
highly undesirable to have an arrow, 
made at the cost of much time and 
labor, lost by being stuck in a high tree 
branch. Worse still, if a bird were im- 
paled by an arrow and both bird and ar- 
row lost! ! Therefore arrows made for 
shooting small birds in trees were com- 
monly made with blunt points so that | 
they would fall to the ground and not i 
stick in the tree. 
As might be supposed, the older men 
of a tribe or the crippled naturally be- 
came the makers of bows and arrows or 
the “bowyers” (though the work did not 
necessarily all fall to them), an occupa- 
tion which contributed to their support, 
as the younger warriors who were 
actively engaged in the chase or war- 
fare bought their product. 
To these older men, also, often fell 
the pleasant task of teaching the 
younger boys how to shoot; as well as 
how to defend themselves if shot at. 
The flight of an arrow can be seen ; and 
it has always been a game played more 
or less frequently among the Indians to 
shoot arrows at each other at some dis- 
tance. The person shot at would watch 
their flight and dodge if necessary or 
would scornfully stand perfectly still if 
he saw that the shot would be a miss. 
Needless to say this is a dangerous game 
requiring good judgment. 
A RROWS for shooting large fish are 
often made with a detachable 
head, the head being, of course, 1 
barbed and made with a socket so that 
the shaft can slip out of it after it has 
entered the fish, or else both head and 
shaft have a socket, a small intermedi- 
ate piece of wood or bone entering both ; 
this would break or pull out leaving the 
head inside. Wound about the shaft 
and attached to it is a cord, the other 
end of which is attached to the head. 
When the head pulls off the struggles of 
the fish loosen and unwind the cord, 
and as the shaft of the arrow acts as a 
float the Indian simply has to get hold j 
of this float and pull his fish in. In 
many cases a plain arrow will suffice or 
an arrow with a head made with three 
barbs arranged in the form of a tripod 
