Wooden Bow
date: label: Accession Date
content: 14 Jun 1943
label: Collection Date
content: 1891 to 1898
name: label: Collector
content: Joseph Stanley-Brown
label: Donor Name
content: Mrs. Joseph Stanley-Brown
notes: label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: From card: "With cord."
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=707, retrieved 5-15-2014: Bow Some early Western observers in the Aleutian Islands, such as Tolstykh in 1764 and Merck in 1790, believed that the bow and arrow were unknown to the people and that all hunting was done with darts and harpoons. Others, such as Cook in 1778 and Veniaminov in 1823-34, observed that bows were used for hunting land animals and birds, as well as for warfare. Elders remember that wooden bows like this one, reinforced with sinew, were occasionally used even in the 20th century for bird hunting. From Elders' discussions of the hat in 2003 (see web page cited above for the full entries) with Mary N. Bourdukofsky, Vlass Shabolin, Maria Turnpaugh and Daria Dirks (Tanadgusix Foundation) at the National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian, 4/07/2003-4/11/2003. Also participating: Aron Crowell and Bill Fitzhugh (NMNH) and Suzi Jones (AMHA). When [my father] ran out of [shotgun shells] he used a little bow and arrow like that, "just for emergencies," he used to say. - Mary Bourdukofsky
label: Notes
content: From 2009 Anthropology Conservation Lab treatment report by Kim Cullen Cobb: For descriptive purposes the back of the bow is the side with the heavy twined cable. Reflex type bow with a bundled cable of twined grass fibers bound to the back of the bow. The bundled fibers are lashed to the bow at either end and in five locations along the length. A bone shim or insert backs one of the reflex curves and is tied in place beneath the bundled grass cable. A length of hide thong is tied to the notched ends of the bow. A concave channel has been carved into the back of the bow, along its length. The bow is decorated along the back with three bands of reddish/brown colored pigment at the middle and at either end. This is the first bow that Michael R. Frank of Occoquan Paleotechnics has seen using grass fibers as the strengthening material. He also commented that the hide thong was very thin compared to other examples in the Smithsonian collection (Personal communication 13 Aug 2009).
label: Record Last Modified
content: 16 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Aleutian Islands, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Aleut (Unangax^ ; Unangan; Unangas)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 165342
label: USNM Number
content: E383196-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Bow
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 130 cm