Book: Hunting with the Bow and Arrow

S >> Saxton Pope >> Hunting with the Bow and Arrow




When a number of people hunted together, Ishi would hide behind a blind
at the side of a deer trail and let the others run the deer past. In
his country we saw old piles of rock covered with lichen and moss that
were less than twenty yards from well-marked deer trails. For
numberless years Indians had used these as blinds to secure camp meat.

In the same necessity, the Indian would lie in wait near licks or
springs to get his food; but he never killed wantonly.

Although Ishi took me on many deer hunts and we had several shots at
deer, owing to the distance or the fall of the ground or obstructing
trees, we registered nothing better than encouraging misses. He was
undoubtedly hampered by the presence of a novice, and unduly hastened
by the white man's lack of time. His early death prevented our ultimate
achievement in this matter, so it was only after he had gone to the
Happy Hunting Grounds that I, profiting by his teachings, killed my
first deer with the bow.

That he had shot many deer, even since boyhood, there was no doubt. To
prove that he could shoot through one with his arrows, I had him
discharge several at a buck killed by our packer. Shooting at forty
yards, one arrow went through the chest wall, half its length; another
struck the spine and fractured it, both being mortal wounds.

It was the custom of his tribe to hunt until noon, when by that time
they usually had several deer, obtained, as a rule, by the ambush
method. Having pre-arranged the matter, the women appeared on the
scene, cut up the meat, cooked part of it, principally the liver and
heart, and they had a feast on the spot. The rest was taken to camp and
made into jerky.

In skinning animals, the Indian used an obsidian knife held in his hand
by a piece of buckskin. I found this cut better than the average
hunting knife sold to sportsmen. Often in skinning rabbits he would
make a small hole in the skin over the abdomen and blow into this,
stripping the integument free from the body and inflating it like a
football, except at the legs.

In skinning the tail of an animal, he used a split stick to strip it
down, and did it so dextrously that it was a revelation of how easy
this otherwise difficult process may be when one knows how. He tanned
his skins in the way customary with most savages: clean skinning, brain
emulsion, and plenty of elbow grease.

[Illustration: OUR CARAVAN LEAVING DEER CREEK CANYON]

[Illustration: ISHI FLAKING AN OBSIDIAN ARROW HEAD]

[Illustration: THE INDIAN AND A DEER]

His people killed bear with the bow and arrow. Ishi made a distinction
between grizzly bear, which he called _tet na_, and black bear, which
he called _bo he_. The former had long claws, could not climb trees,
and feared nothing. He was to be let alone. The other was "all same
pig." The black bear, when found, was surrounded by a dozen or more
Indians who built fires, and discharging their arrows at his open
mouth, attempted to kill him. If he charged, a burning brand was
snatched from the fire and thrust in his face while the others shot him
from the side. Thus they wore him down and at last vanquished him.

In his youth, Ishi killed a cinnamon bear single handed. Finding it
asleep on a ledge of rock, he sneaked close to it and gave a loud
whistle. The bear rose up on its hind legs and Ishi shot him through
the chest. With a roar the bear fell off the ledge and the Indian
jumped after him. With a short-handled obsidian spear he thrust him
through the heart. The skin of this bear now hangs in the Museum of
Anthropology in mute testimony of the courage and daring of Ishi. Had
this young man been given a name, perhaps they would have called him
Yellow Bear.

While he shot many birds, I never saw Ishi try wing shooting except at
eagles or hawks. For these he would use an arrow on which he had
smeared mud to make it dark in color. A light shaft is readily
discerned by these birds, and I have often seen them dodge an arrow.
But the darker one is almost invisible head on. The feathers of the
arrows were close cropped to make them swift and noiseless.

The sound of a bowstring is that of a sharp twang accompanied by a
muffled crack. To avoid this and make a silent shot, the Indian bound
his bow at the nocks with weasel fur; this effectually damped the
vibration of the string, while the passage of the arrow across the bow,
which gives the slight crack, is abolished by a heavy padding of
buckskin at this point.

Ishi never wore an arm guard or glove or finger stalls to protect
himself as other archers do. He seemed not to need them. When he
released the arrow, the bow rotated in his hand so that the string
faced in the opposite direction from which it started. His thumb alone
drew the string, and this was so toughened that it needed no leather
covering.

In a little bag he carried extra arrowheads and sinews, so that in a
pinch he could mend his arrows.

When not actually in use, he promptly unstrung his bow, and gently
straightened it by hand. In cold weather he heated it over a fire
before bracing it. The slightest moisture would deter him from
shooting, unless absolutely necessary--he was so jealous of his tackle.
If his bowstring stretched in the heat or dampness, as sinew is liable
to do, he shortened it by twisting one end prior to bracing it.

Before shooting he invariably looked over each arrow, straightened it
in his hands or by his teeth, re-arranged its feathers, and saw that
the point was properly adjusted. In fact, he gave infinite attention to
detail. With him, every shot must count. Besides arrows in his quiver,
he carried several ready for use under his right arm, which he kept
close to his side while drawing the bow.

In all things pertaining to the handicraft of archery and the technique
of shooting, he was most exacting. Neatness about his tackle, care of
his equipment, deliberation and form in his shooting were typical of
him; in fact, he loved his bow as he did no other of his possessions.
It was his constant companion in life and he took it with him on his
last long journey.




IV


ARCHERY IN GENERAL


Our experience with Ishi waked the love of archery in us, that impulse
which lies dormant in the heart of every Anglo-Saxon. For it is a
strange thing that all the men who have centered about this renaissance
in shooting the bow, in our immediate locality, are of English
ancestry. Their names betray them. Many have come and watched and shot
a little, and gone away; but these have stayed to hunt.

From shooting the bow Indian fashion, I turned to the study of its
history, and soon found that the English were its greatest masters. In
them archery reached its high tide; after them its glory passed.

But the earliest evidence of the use of the bow is found in the
existence of arrowheads assigned to the third interglacial period,
nearly 50,000 years ago.

That man had material culture prior to this epoch, there is no doubt,
and the use of the bow with arrows of less complicated structure must
have preceded this period.

All races and nations at one time or another have used the bow. Even
the Australian aborigine, who is supposed to have been too low in
mental development to have understood the principles of archery, used a
miniature bow and poisoned arrow in shooting game. In the magnificent
collection of Joseph Jessop of San Diego, California, I saw one of
these little bows scarcely more than a foot long. The arrows, he
stated, the natives carried in the hair of their heads.

Those who are interested in the archaeology of the bow should read the
volume on archery of the Badminton Library by Longmans.

Various peoples have excelled in shooting, notably the Japanese, the
Turks, the Scythians, and the English. Others have not been suited by
temperament to use the bow. The Latins, the Peruvians, and the Irish
seem never to have been toxophilites. The famous long bow of Merrie Old
England was brought there by the Normans, who inherited it from the
Norsemen settled along the Rhine. Here grew the best yew trees in days
gone by, and this, doubtless, was a strong determining factor in the
superior development of their archery.

Before the battle of Hastings, the Saxons used the short, weak weapon
common to all primitive people. The conquered Saxon, deprived of all
arms such as the boar-spear, the sword, the ax, and the dagger,
naturally turned to the bow because he could make this himself, and he
copied the Norman long bow.

Although the first game preserves in England were established by
William the Conqueror at this time, the Saxon was permitted to shoot
birds and small beasts in his fields and therefore was allowed to use a
blunt arrow, headed with a lead tip or pilum, hence our term pile, or
target point. If found with a sharp arrowhead, the so-called broad-head
used for killing the king's deer, he was promptly hanged. The evidence
against such a poacher was summed up thus in the old legend:

Dog draw, stable stand
Back berond, bloody hand.

One found following a questing hound, posed in the stand of an archer,
carrying game on his back, or with the evidence of recent butchery on
his hands, was hanged to the nearest tree by his own bowstring.

It was under these circumstances that outlawry took the form of deer
killing and robust archery became the national sport. In these days the
legendary hero, the demi-myth, Robin Hood, was born. What boy has not
thrilled at the tales of Greenwood men, the well-sped shaft, the
arrow's low whispering flight, and the willow wand split at a hundred
paces?

Every boy goes through a period of barbarism, just as the nations have
passed, and during that age he is stirred by the call of the bow. I,
too, shot the toy bows of boyhood; shot with Indian youths in the Army
posts of Texas and Arizona. We played the impromptu pageants of Robin
Hood, manufactured our own tackle, and carried it about with unfailing
fidelity; hunted small birds and rabbits, and were the usual savages of
that age.

But when it comes to the legends of the bow, the records of these past
glories are so vague that we must accept them as a tale oft told; it
grows with the telling.

It seems that distances were measured in feet, paces, yards, or rods
with blithe indifference, and the narrator added to them at will. Robin
is supposed to have shot a mile, and his bow was so long and so strong
no man could draw it. In sooth, he was a mighty hero, and yet the
ballads refer to him as a "slight fellow," even "a bag of bones." As a
youth he slew the king's deer at three hundred yards, a right goodly
shot! And no doubt it was.

Of all the bows of the days when archery was in flower, only two
remain. These are unfinished staves found in the ship _Mary Rose_, sunk
off the coast of Albion in 1545. This vessel having been raised from
the bottom of the ocean in 1841, the staves were recovered and are now
in the Tower of London. They are six feet, four and three-quarters
inches long, one and one-half inches across the handle, one and one-
quarter inches thick, and proportionately large throughout. The
dimensions are recorded in Badminton. Of course, they never have been
tested for strength, but it has been estimated at 100 pounds.

Determined to duplicate these old bows, I selected a very fine grained
stave of seasoned yew and made an exact duplicate, according to the
recorded measurements.

This bow, when drawn the standard arrow length of twenty-eight inches,
weighed sixty-five pounds and shot a light flight arrow two hundred and
twenty-five yards. When drawn thirty-six inches, it weighed seventy-six
pounds and shot a flight arrow two hundred and fifty-six yards. From
this it would seem that even though these ancient staves appear to be
almost too powerful for a modern man to draw, they not only are well
within our command, but do not shoot a mile.

The greatest distance shot by a modern archer was made by Ingo Simon,
using a Turkish composite bow, in France in 1913. The measured distance
was four hundred and fifty-nine yards and eight inches. That is very
near the limit of this type of bow and far beyond the possibilities of
the yew long bow. But the long bow is capable of shooting heavier
shafts and shooting them harder.

Since archery is fast disappearing from the land, and the material for
study will soon become extinct, I have undertaken to record the
strength and shooting qualities of a representative number of the
available bows in preservation, together with the power of penetration
of arrows.

To do this, through the mediation of the Department of Anthropology of
the University of California, I have had access to the best collection
of bows in America. Thousands of weapons were at my disposal in various
museums, and from these I selected the best preserved and strongest to
shoot.

The formal report of these experiments is in the publications of the
University, and here 'tis only necessary to mention a few of the
findings.

In testing the function of these bows and their ability to shoot, a
bamboo flight arrow made by Ishi was used as the standard. It was
thirty inches long, weighed three hundred and ten grains, and had very
low cropped feathers. It carried universally better than all other
arrows tested, and flew twenty per cent farther than the best English
flight arrows.

To make sure that no element of personal weakness entered into the
test, I had these bows shot by Mr. Compton, a very powerful man and one
used to the bow for thirty years. I myself could draw them all, and
checked up the results.

It is axiomatic that the weight and the cast of a bow are criteria of
its value as a weapon in war or in the chase. Weight, as used by an
archer, means the pull of a bow when full drawn, recorded in pounds.

The following is a partial list of those weighed and shot. They are, of
course, all genuine bows and represent the strongest. Each was shot at
least six times over a carefully measured course and the greatest
flight recorded. All flights were made at an elevation of forty-five
degrees and the greatest possible draw was given each shot. In fact we
spared no bows because of their age, and consequently broke two in the
testing.

Weight Distance Shot
Alaskan....................... 80 pounds 180 yards
Apache........................ 28 " 120 "
Blackfoot..................... 45 " 145 "
Cheyenne...................... 65 " 156 "
Cree.......................... 38 " 150 "
Esquimaux..................... 80 " 200 "
Hupa.......................... 40 " 148 "
Luiseno....................... 48 " 125 "
Navajo........................ 45 " 150 "
Mojave........................ 40 " 110 "
Osage......................... 40 " 92 "
Sioux......................... 45 " 165 "
Tomawata...................... 40 " 148 "
Yurok......................... 30 " 140 "
Yukon......................... 60 " 125 "
Yaki.......................... 70 " 210 "
Yana.......................... 48 " 205 "

The list of foreign bows is as follows:

Weight Distance Shot
Paraguay...................... 60 pounds 170 yards
Polynesian.................... 49 " 172 "
Nigrito....................... 56 " 176 "
Andaman Islands................45 " 142 "
Japanese.......................48 " 175 "
Africa.........................54 " 107 "
Tartar.........................98 " 175 "
South American.................50 " 98 "
Igorrote.......................26 " 100 "
Solomon Islands................56 " 148 "
English target bow (imported)..48 " 220 "
English yew flight bow.........65 " 300 "
Old English hunting bow........75 " 250 "


It will be seen from these tests that no existing aboriginal bow is
very powerful when compared with those in use in the days of robust
archery in old England.

The greatest disappointment was in the Tartar bow which was brought
expressly from Shansi, China, by my brother, Col. B. H. Pope. With this
powerful weapon I expected to shoot a quarter of a mile; but with all
its dreadful strength, its cast was slow and cumbersome. The arrow that
came with it, a miniature javelin thirty-eight inches long, could only
be projected one hundred and ten yards. In making these shots both
hands and feet were used to draw the bow. A special flight arrow
thirty-six inches long was used in the test, but with hardly any
increase of distance gained.

After much experimenting and research into the literature, [1]
[Footnote 1: Balfour, _Composite Bows_.]
I constructed two horn composite bows, such as were used by the Turks
and Egyptians. They were perfect in action, the larger one weighing
eighty-five pounds. With this I hoped to establish a record, but after
many attempts my best flight was two hundred and ninety-one yards. This
weapon, being only four feet long, would make an excellent buffalo bow
to be used on horseback.

In shooting for distance, of course, a very light missile is used, and
nothing but empirical tests can determine the shape, size, and weight
that suits each bow. Consequently, we use hundreds of arrows to find
the best. For more than seven years these experiments have continued,
and at this stage of our progress the best flight arrow is made of
Japanese bamboo five-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, having a
foreshaft of birch the same diameter and four inches long. The nock is
a boxwood plug inserted in the rear end, both joints being bound with
silk floss and shellacked. The point is the copper nickel jacket of the
present U. S. Army rifle bullet, of conical shape. The feathers are
parabolic, three-quarters of an inch long by one-quarter high, three in
number, set one inch from the end, and come from the wing of an owl.
The whole arrow is thirty inches long, weighs three hundred and twenty
grains, and is very rigid.

With this I have shot three hundred and one yards with a moderate wind
at my back, using a Paraguay ironwood bow five feet two inches long,
backed with hickory and weighing sixty pounds. This is my best flight
shot.

It is not advisable here to go further into this subject; let it stand
that the English yew long bow is the highest type of artillery in the
world.

Although the composite Turkish bows can shoot the farthest, it is only
with very light arrows; they are incapable of projecting heavier shafts
to the extent of the yew long bow, that is, they can transmit velocity
but not momentum; they have resiliency, but not power.

Besides these experiments with bows, many tests were made of the flight
and penetration of arrows. A few of the pertinent observations are here
noted.

A light arrow from a heavy bow, say a sixty-five pound yew bow, travels
at an initial velocity of one hundred and fifty feet per second, as
determined by a stopwatch.

Shooting at one hundred yards, such an arrow is discharged at an angle
of eight degrees, and describes a parabola twelve to fifteen feet high
at its crest. Its time in transit is of approximately two and one-fifth
seconds.

Shooting straight up, such an arrow goes about three hundred and fifty
feet high, and requires eight seconds for the round trip. This test was
made by shooting arrows over very tall sequoia trees, of known height.

The striking force of a one-ounce arrow shot from a seventy-five pound
bow at ten yards, is twenty-five foot pounds. This test is made by
shooting at a cake of paraffin and comparing the penetration with that
made by falling weights. Such a striking force is, of course,
insignificant when compared with that of a modern bullet, viz., three
thousand foot pounds. Yet the damage done by an arrow armed with a
sharp steel broad-head is often greater than that done by a bullet, as
we shall see later on.

A standard English target arrow rotates during flight six complete
revolutions every twenty yards, or approximately fifteen times a
second. Heavy hunting shafts turn more slowly. This was ascertained by
shooting two arrows at once from the same bow, their shafts being
connected by a silk thread, so that one paid off as the other wound up
the thread. The number of complete loops, of course, indicated the
number of revolutions. A sand-bank makes a good butt to catch them. In
rotating, much depends on the size and shape of the feather.

Shooting a blunt arrow from a seventy-five pound bow at a white pine
board an inch thick, the shaft will often go completely through it. A
broad hunting head will penetrate two or three inches, then bind. But
the broad-head will go through animal tissue better, even cutting bones
in two; in fact, such an arrow will go completely through any animal
but a pachyderm.

To test a steel bodkin pointed arrow such as was used at the battle of
Cressy, I borrowed a shirt of chain armor from the Museum, a beautiful
specimen made in Damascus in the 15th Century. It weighed twenty-five
pounds and was in perfect condition. One of the attendants in the
Museum offered to put it on and allow me to shoot at him. Fortunately,
I declined his proffered services and put it on a wooden box, padded
with burlap to represent clothing.

Indoors at a distance of seven yards, I discharged an arrow at it with
such force that sparks flew from the links of steel as from a forge.
The bodkin point and shaft went through the thickest portion of the
back, penetrated an inch of wood and bulged out the opposite side of
the armor shirt. The attendant turned a pale green. An arrow of this
type can be shot about two hundred yards, and would be deadly up to the
full limit of its flight.

The question of the cutting qualities of the obsidian head as compared
to those of the sharpened steel head, was answered in the following
experiment:

A box was so constructed that two opposite sides were formed by fresh
deer skin tacked in place. The interior of the box was filled with
bovine liver. This represented animal tissue minus the bones.

At a distance of ten yards I discharged an obsidian-pointed arrow and a
steel-pointed arrow from a weak bow. The two missiles were alike in
size, weight, and feathering, in fact, were made by Ishi, only one had
the native head and the other his modern substitute. Upon repeated
trials, the steel-headed arrow uniformly penetrated a distance of
twenty-two inches from the front surface of the box, while the obsidian
uniformly penetrated thirty inches, or eight inches farther,
approximately 25 per cent better penetration. This advantage is
undoubtedly due to the concoidal edge of the flaked glass operating
upon the same principle that fluted-edged bread and bandage knives cut
better than ordinary knives.

In the same way we discovered that steel broad-heads sharpened by
filing have a better meat-cutting edge than when ground on a stone.

In our experience with game shooting, we never could see the advantage
of longitudinal grooves running down the shaft of the arrow, such as
some aborigines use, supposed to promote bleeding. In the first place
these marks are inadequate in depth, and secondly it is not the
exterior bleeding that kills the wounded animal so much as the internal
hemorrhage.

A sufficiently wide head on the arrow cuts a hole large enough to
permit the escape of excess blood, and, as a matter of fact, nearly all
of our shots are perforating, going completely through the body.

Conical, blunt, and bodkin points lack the power of penetration in
animal tissue inherent in broad-heads; correspondingly they do less
damage.

[Illustration (up-left): THREE TYPES OF HUNTING ARROWS]

[Illustration (up-right): A BLUNT ARROW SHOT THROUGH AN INCH BOARD]

[Illustration (down-left): "BRER" FOX UP A TREE]

[Illustration (down-right): ART YOUNG SHOOTS FISH]

Catlin, in his book on the North American Indian, relates that the
Mandans, among other tribes, practiced shooting a number of arrows in
succession with such dexterity that their best archer could keep eight
arrows up in the air at one time.

Will Thompson, the dean of American archery, writing in _Forest and
Stream_ of March, 1915, says very definitely that the feat of the
legendary hero, Hiawatha, who is supposed to have shot so strong and
far that he could shoot the tenth arrow before the first descended, is
manifestly absurd. Thompson contends that no man ever has, or ever will
keep more than three arrows up in the air at once.

Having read this and determined to try the experiment of dextrous
shooting, I constructed a dozen light arrows having wide nocks and
flattened rear ends so they might be fingered quickly. Then I devised a
way of grasping a supply of ready shafts in the bow hand, and invented
an arrow release in which all the fingers and thumb held the arrow on
the string, yet remained entirely on the right side of it.

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