


































FOREST AND STREAM. 


6074 
Upper Group.—Portions of ribs and 
In the middle group the arrow point 

shoulderblade of ; 
on the left was one of hoop-iron withdrawn from the 
“A x AT 
ARROW: HEAD 
rao voib en the Tineke of x Moxteas Reethon 
¢ 
Coat. Wy ot ars 7 
te: ss owt Senge, 9. 5k 
Se 
~~ 
buffalo transfixed by iron arrows. 
brain of a soldier nine days after being wounded by Apaches. 
After the bow had been finished, trimmed 
down to its proper shape, and with the knocks 
cut in the two ends for the string, the back of 
the bow was rubbed with a piece of bone, 
ally a fragment of a rib, until it was smootl 
usu- 
and 
polished. The dry sinew, of which the bow- 
maker had an abundance, was now taken, broken 


into threads with the finger nails, and placec 
in a bowl of water. The best sinew was that 
taken from the loin of the buffalo, extending 
from the neck back-to the hips. This was al- 
ways saved, the flesh scraped from it, and the 
long strips hung up to dry. 
The applyi the 
made by boiling the shavings from the skin ot 
the neck of the buffalo bull; 
the 
might 
glue used for ing sinew was 

or, if this was not 
skin of the neck of any- large 
Boiled with water 
these shavings made strong glue. With a stick 
this glue was applied to the back of the bow, 
convenient, 
ruminant be used. 
Buffalo rib, with transfixed iron arrow head; 
shaft of same arrow. 


also broken 
and the moist threads of sinew laid on it side 
by side straight along the bow. After the first 
layer had been applied, and had time to dry, 
other put over these, until 
finally the layer of sinew threads might be the 
thirty-secondth of an inch in thickness. The 
final operation in this application was to give 
the of the bow a thick coating of glue, 
which as it dried 
the bone that had 
After the 
any loose ends of sinew, or any glue that had 
spread from the back were removed with a sharp 
knife. The ends of the bow were now wrapped 
with sinew, applied as before with glue. 
Not all bows were made in precisely the same 
way. Different bow makers had _ different 
methods, each man of course believing that his 
way was a little better than that of any other. 
did not shred the 
layers were on 
back 
was rubbed repeatedly with 
been used in smoothing the 
wood. glue was thoroughly dried, 
Some men, for example, 
Thoracic vertebra with iron 
instant death. 
arrow or knife-point passed d1- 
rectly into spinal cord, causing 















e [Nov. 23, 1907. 


sinew, but applied it in wide strips, sometimes 
quite as wide as the bow itself. These were 
dampened or wetted and were laid on the glue, 
and other wide strips were laid over them, 
Sometimes the grasp at the middle of the bow 
was wrapped with buckskin or red cloth, appliec 
with glue; or the buckskin or cloth might be 
merely glued on at the back and sewed together 
beneath. Some tribes painted the back of the 
bow with various colors; others, while the glue 
sprinkled over it powderec 










was yet moist, 
gypsum. 
The bow-string was usually made of twistec 
sinew, sometimes put on the bow green anc 
allowed to dry there. In the Southwest, how 
ever, the string was sometimes made of vegetabl 
fibre. In other sections it might be made o 
strips of rawhide, or of the intestines of animals 
The bow and its arrows were almost alway 
carried on the back, in cases made of the skin 
of animals. The bow-case was a long and nar| 
row bag, just wide enough to admit the unstrun; 
Immediately beneath that, and parallel t)| 
it, both cases usually being attached to a stil| 
rod of wood nearly as long as the quiver, wa| 
the shorter, wider bag for the arrows. It wa 
slightly longer than the arrow, and when arrow) 
were to be drawn from it they were graspe| 
about the feathers, so as to prevent this im| 
portant part of the dart from being ruffled o| 
knocked out of shape. Among the plains tribe| 
in old times the best quivers and bow case| 
were made from the skin of the otter, but th| 
hide of the panther was also highly valued fc! 
this purpose, and bow cases and quivers wet| 
frequently made from the hide of the buffal) 
calf. In later times the skins of cattle we1 
used for the same purpose, and I have an o| 
bow case and quiver made from the skin of 
mule, one of the pack train of the Sevent 
Cavalry, killed at the time of the Custer fight. 
It was necessary not only that the bowma 
should have a convenient means of carryir 
and keeping together this most important pa). 
of his equipment, but also that they should 1): 
protected from the weather. Rain and eve 
damp weather tended to injure the bow ai) 
arrow, softening and rendering sticky the gh, 
used in the manufacture of the bow, and in a): 
plying the feathers to the arrow, and what wi 
more important, also moistening the bow strin| | 
which stretched and so became useless. Hcl, 
important this might ber is shown by wh}! 
happened at the once famous fight at the mou‘ 
of the Musselshell in 1868, as related yea| 
ago in Forest AND STREAM by Harry McDonald). 
quorum pars fuit. What the rain did in tl] 
case is graphically told. G. B. G| 
[TO BE CONTINUED. | 

bow. 






Human vertebre with iron 
arrow heads. Man killed in 
Indian fight rear Fort 
Concho in 1869, 



