Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1909-07-02
LAND OF THE CRoSSB0W.
The Deadly Poisoned Arrows of the
Lissoo Sharpshooters.

Lissoo Sharpshooters.
On the wild frontier between China
and British Burma is a barbarous tribe
which has no civilized supervision.
George Forrest, an English traveller,
thus describes the chief weapon of
those people: IF l had to suggest a
title for a book on the upper Salwin
n hallAAs 4 ~ -
bow which is the characteristic weap-
ON of the country and the Lissoo tribe.
Every Lissoo with any pretensions to
chic possesses at least two of these
weapons-one for everyday use in hunt
ing, the other for war. The little chill
dren play with miniature crossbows.
The men never leave their huts for any
purpose whatever without their cross
bows. When they go to sleep the 'nu-
kung' is hung over their heads, and
when they die 1t is hung over their
graves. The largest crossbows have a
span of fully five feet and require a
pull of fully t~hirty-ive pounds to string
them. The bow is made of a species of
wild mulberry of great toughness and
fexibility. The stock, some four feet
long in the war bows, is usually of
wild plum wood. The string is of
plated hemp and the trigger of bone.
The arrow, of sixteen to eighteen
inches, is of split bamboo about four
times the thickness of an ordinary
knitting needle. hardened and pointed.
The actual point is bare for a quarter
IN nnn-fhird of on innh fhan for fully
an inch the arrow is stripped to half its
thickness, and on this portion poison is
placed.
1.-THE poison is invariably a decoction
expressed from the tubers of a species
of aconitum which grows on those
ranges at an altitude of 5000 to 10000
feet. The poison Is mixed with resin
or some vegetable gum to the consist
ency of putty and Is hen smeared on
the notched point. The feather Is sup
piled by a strip of bamboo leaf folded
into a triangular form and tied in q
notch at the end of the arrow, with the
point of the angle outward. The re
duction In thickness of the arrow
where the poison is placed causes the
point to break off In the body of any
one whom it strikes, and, as each car
ries enough poison to kill a cart horse,
q wound is invariably fatal. Free and
immediate incision is the usual remedy
when wounded on a limb or feshy part
of the body, but at Chengka the uncle
of the Laowo chief showed us a prep
aration which resembled opium dross
and which he said was an effective
antidote.
with few exceptions the Lissoo
seemed to us to be arrant towards,
but the crossbow and poisoned arrow
are certainly most diabolical weapons.
An arrow from a wal bow will pierce
a deal board an inch thick at seventy
or eighty yards. Some of the Tsekou
natives were so expert that they could
hit a mark four inches in diameter re-
peatedly at sixty to eighty yards. AS
no one goes anywhere without bis
crossbow and his bearskin culver full
of poisoned arrows and as every vii
lage is at feud with every other vii
lage mutual suspicion Is inevitable,
In open fight the Lissoo are usually
careful to keep at a respectful distance
from each other and behind oxhide
shields which protect the whole of the
body. But if battle is rare, murder
and sudden death by ambush I'M the
jungle are common"