Evening star., 1901-12-14
Family Tree Goes Back Into the
Dark Ages.
CURIOUS WEAPONS OF OLDEN TIMES
Bows and Arrows in Use Among
Primitive Peoples.
FOR DEFENSE AND DEFENSE

Written for The Evening Star by Prof Otis T.
Mason
The dogs of war are rifles. and they go by
different names in different countries. In
the Argentine Republic and Belgium the
name is Mauser, but in Spain and Turkey
they are Mousers, a title previously con-
ferred on cats. Austria, Chile, Germany,
Holland and Roumania call the dogs of
war Mannlicher; but in Denmark and, in
deed, in the United States, ten years ago,
they were -Jorgensens. They are Lee
Medfords in England; Lebels and Berthiers
in France. Mann-Carcanos in Italy, Dau-
deteaus in Mexico, Kropatscheks in Portu-
gal. Mouzins in Russia, Remingtons in Swe-
den, Schmidts in Switzerland and Spring
fields in the United States. The last named,
however, are a greatly improved breed over
those of fifty years ago.
If you will peep into dogs mouth, or
better, that of wolf, you will see four
pointed teeth, called CANNES. They look,
for all the world, like cartridges. There
are similar teeth in your own mouth but
tney would be sorry weapons in a contest
with the carnivorous beasts all of which
nave excellent piercing and lacerating
weapons in their jaws. 1t would seem that
the creator In depriving humanity of such
weapons and at the same time giving them
larger and finer brains as much as said
Il want you to be cunning and thoughtful
Go to work and make teeth or fangs
sharper than any of these. Put wings on
your teeth, SO they may fly and bite and
springs in their limbs so they NAV bite
deeper and surer." The rifle cartridges are
theSe winged fangs, and for this reason
such weapons are called the dogs of war.
Inc FAMILY tree of the rifle would read
somewhat in the following order: Breech-
loading rifle, son of percussion musket son
OF hlnt-lock musket, son of matchbox mus
ket or Hackenbuse Musket is old French
of Tav
Verln, son of Arbalest son of CrossboU son
or Longbow, son Of Bow, son of Nimrod 1t
Will be interesting to trace this genealosy
DOWNWARD with greater care, remembering
tnat as you have the canine teeth and all
the complex apparatus of bone and muscle
IN the dog, you have also the missile and
tne mechanism for making it effective in
the rifle and its ancestor.
Primitive Weapons
Inc whole group are weapons for pierc-
ing. cutting or mangling at a distance
they are missile. The most primitive bow
now in use is long spindle of wood, with
little attempt at differentiation of parts or
ornaments. The Hawaiians, Samoans and
other brown Polynesians had no bows; the
same is true of the Inca Peruvians But all
otner uncivilized peoples had the weapon
in some form.
The Indian tribes about the Straits of
Magellan may be taken the starting
bow is stick, consisting of infiexible grip
for the hand; elastic wings to speed the
missile, string to transfer the energy to the
arrow, and the arrow itself, with rigid
shaft, piercing head of bottle glass, feath-
ers to act as a rudder, and mock or notch
for the bowstring. 1t is a device of what
Emerson names that cunning little crea-
ture called man, to take the place of his
arm In Sooth 1t is often written arm"
He had all sorts of murderous weapons be-
fore he made the bow-daggers, spears
JaVelins, fists, clubs and sings, knives
swords and poleaxes. These one and all
used up the elasticity of his muscle. oper-
atng gradually and in any direction, like
a free running machine, or most suddenly
and In one direction, as any pent-up force
will act when instantly released The
Fuegan bow is of the latter kind. an elastic
stick in which the power of the arm is
slowly accumulated in drawing and sudden
ly set free in releasing. l may be pardoned
for dwelling a moment at this point for
human intellect was on the rack thousands
of years devising first this and then some
other mechanism to mold the force of elas-
ticity and then to release it suddenly.
From the first it was known that the rear
end of an arrow, called the shaftment,
ought to have the greatest resistance from
the air. The inventions proposed to secure
this will be considered later.
The Simple Bow.
Starting out from the Fuegian bows it is
interesting to note how various savage
tribes have constructed theirs, governed by
the materials at hand and the game to be
killed. No better method could be found
for making this study than to walk with
the savages all the way from Magellan
strait to Point Barrow. The South Ameri-
can, middle American, eastern North
American and Rocky mountain tribes all
use the plain or self-bow. Here it is of
black palm wood, there of hard tropical
wood, in another place it is black walnut
Usage orange, hickory, ash, oak or even
willow, owing to the varying humors of
Dame Nature; but over nearly the whole
continent, as well as in the entire negro,
Malay and European areas only the simple
form was used.
In passing, it will be we'll to notice a
piercing projectile in the Amazon region
and among Malay peoples that may have
whispered in the ears of the men who have
invented the arquebus-I mean the blow
tube arrow. There is a barrel to give
direction to the missile, which is sent on