North American bows, arrows, and quivers - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1894 edition. Excerpt: ... those used in most of the uncivilized tribes of North America, consisting of the bow and arrows, the lance and the javelin, war-clubs, knives, etc., and with these, as a protection in battle, a leathern shield, made of the hide of the buffalo bull, sufficiently thick and hard to arrest an arrow or to turn the blade of a lance." t The Ioways belong to the Siouan stock and their arrows are a shaft, iron head, and three tolerably long feathers. The nock is either bulbous or flaring, affording a grip for the thumb and fore finger. The quiver is an elaborate affair. Indeed the quivers of the Siouan and other stocks preying upon the buffalo were the most complicated on the continent. The Blackfeet do not make bows of the horn of the elk or of the mountain sheep. Their country does not produce any wood suitable for bows, and they obtain by barter the bow wood, or yellow wood (Madura aurantiaca) from the river Arkansas. For their quivers they prefer the skin of the cougar (Felis concolor, Linn). The tail hangs down from the quiver, is trimmed with red cloth on the inner side, embroidered with white beads and ornamented at the end or elsewhere with strips of skin-like tassels. "I saw few lances among the Blackfeet, but many war clubs which they have taken from the Flatheads. Many have thick leather shields painted green and red, and hung with feathers and other things.": All the Sioux tribes use a short arrow, with long shaftment bearing three eagle feathers. The shafts were marked with the lightning furrows, and streaked in different colors. The Sioux procured iron centuries ago and substituted it for the stone head. One of the rarest specimens in any museum is a Sioux arrow with a jasper point. Mr. Dorsey says that the Omaha use the...