The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-02-01
INDIAN BOWS AND ARROWS.
A Wonderful Collection Lately Set Up at
Smithsonian Institute.

| washington Letter in New York Sum-
| A collection interesting and valuable
to the student of America anthology has
been set up recently and placed in the
show cases of the Indian department. of
the United States national museum OF
the Smithsonian institution. 1t is
complete collection, SO far as is known,
of ali classes of bows, arrows and quivers
from among the tribes of North Amer
lean Indians from Mexico to Ala ska. 1t
has required the efforts of the most skill
| full i'd best informed of collectors during
a period of 10 or Is years to get the speci-
mems together and vast amount of
work on the part of the people at the ma
tional museum to classify and arrange
them In their proper order according to
classes, tribes and ATTITUDES. Prof Otis
T. Mason, the curator of tho department.
of ethnology of the national museum, has
made the collection special hobby, and
has gone deeply into the history of the
arrow and bow.
The bows Prof. Mason has divided nat
urally into four classes, he plain bow,
made of a single piece of hard elastic
wood; the compound bow, made of two
or more pieces of wood, baleen, antler
horn, or bone fastened together; the
sinew-lined bow, consisting of a single
piece of yew or other wood, on the back
of which shredded sinew is pastered by
means of glue; and the sinew- corded
| hOvv nj, ,ocEa rcix h,
kimo. Eaoh of these four types has been
sub-divided according to the region or
tribe. Prof. Mason thinks that there
has never been any object in the way Of a
weapon into which q human being could
| throw so much Of himself-his hands,
his eyes, his whole mind and body-as
the bow. The attachment of the Indian
warrior to this weapon is proverbial, and
the greatest care and pride were taken in
it manufacture. In every Indian wig
wan bow slaves were kept on hand in
different stages of readiness or working.
An Indian was always on the lookout for
good pieces of wood or other raw materi-
al. There have been instances in the
West where the wood for bows the
stones for arrow heads, and even the pu-
mage for the feathering were articles of
| commerce in old as we'll as in recent
| times.
Of the classes of bows which Prof. Ma
son mentions the hardwood bow was
found in all North America east of the
Rocky Mountains and south of Hudson
bay. The compound bow, or that made
I'm, tu,n fact Qt tha grin
used by the north eastern Eskimo and
the Sioux. In both cases it is supposed
that the compound bow resulted from
the lack of wdod long enough to make
one out Of single piece. The sinew-
lined bow extends up and down the
Sierras in the western Unite1 States and
extends as far north as the head waters
of the Mackenzie. The sinew-corded bow,
which has a backing made up of long
strings or sinews passing to and for on
the back, is divided into four types:
The Cumberland gulf type, the South
i Alaskan type, where the bow is broad,
flat and straight, but narrowed at the
i grip; the Arctic type, where tie bow is
short and narrower, and the ends are
often bent, as in the Tata tow and the
Western type, which is still broader and
flatter than the others. The materials
for bows in the South were cottonwood,
willow, hickory, oak, ash. walnut; in
the northeastern United States hickory,
oak, ash, walnut, sycamore, dogwood,
and any of the many species of hard
wood; in southeastern Alaska willow
and spruce; in western Canada birch,
willow, maple, spruce and cedar. The
, Eskimos frequently made their bows
from the driftwood and timber from
whal ships and wrecks. The bowstrings
J have been made of strips of rough raw
, hide, plain and twisted, of strings of
: hemp ard other fbres, of the intest1nes
of animals cut into strips and twisted,
but most frequently of all sinew.
Marvellous tales have been told of the
, skill of American Indians in the USE of
the bow. Prof Mason, in his rating Of
the North American arrow, endeavors to
omit the marvellous and exceptional sue
cesses AS we'll as the shortcomings. When
allowances are made, he says, for accur-
ate, rapid and effectual shooting, the bow
and arrow in the hands of a skilled war
rior or hunter was most oroditabl
veal pom. Capt. John G. Bourke, who
has made a close study of the habits of
the Indians. has given a number of in
stances of the deep penetration of the
Indian arrow. In the summer of 1871 he
was riding by the side of Gen. MoCook
on the summit of the elevated plateau
known as the Moaholland mountains in
Arizona. They were a short distance
ahead of large party of cavalry. and
their immediate party was quite small
They ran into an Apache ambuscade.
and number of arrows were discharged
Two of them were afterward seen sticking
into pine trees to a depth of at least six
inches. In 1870 friend of Capt. Bourke's
was mortally wounded by an Apache ar
row which pierced his chest, and the au-
topsy disclosed the fact that the fatal ar
row had ne head Great tales, too, are
|, | told of the rapj6itv with which the In