Arrow shaft

“ The Indians of California certainly affix their arrow-heads in a similar manner; but commonly there are notches on either side of the head at the base, to receive the sinew or split intestine, which is in the form of tape about 1/8 inch wide. The binding extends about an inch along the shaft, and is of the neatest description. North American [332] arrow-heads, fastened in this manner, have been engraved by Sir John Lubbock and the Rev. J. G. Wood. The end of the shaft has a shallow notch in it to receive the flint, which is cemented into the notch before being bound on. ”

“ The bow is remarkable for having the string coated with a sort of resinous substance in order to preserve it, the middle of the cord being skilfully wrapped with bark to guard it against injury from the nock of the arrow. The arrows are made of two pieces, the head being shaped from a hard and heavy wood, and the shaft being a reed. The place where they are joined is strengthened by a ligature of bark. The butt of the arrow is wrapped in the same manner to prevent it from being split by the string. ”

“ The arrow-heads in use among the North American Indians, [57] when intended for hunting, were so contrived that they could be drawn out of the wound, but those destined for war were formed and attached to the shaft in such a manner, that when it was attempted to pull out the arrow, its head became detached, and remained in the wound. The poisoned arrows of the Bushmen of South Africa [58] are in like manner made with triangular heads of iron, which become detached in the body if an attempt is made to withdraw the arrow from the wound that it has caused. ”

“ Each warrior carries a measuring, or pattern stick, and it is necessary only to compare an arrow with the stick to find out to whom it belongs. But should the arrows by chance be of one length, there are other means of identifying them; for every hunter has his own private mark in the shaft, the head, or the feather. Of many thousands I have examined, I have never found two arrows exactly alike when they were made by different warriors.
When the shafts have been made even, the next work is to form the notch for the bow-string. ”

“ This type of arrow we use for rough practice, shooting tin cans, trees, boxes, and other impedimenta. It makes a good shaft for birds, rabbits, and small game.
A second type of head we use is made of soft steel about a sixteenth of an inch thick. We cut it with a hack saw into a blunt, barbed, lanceolate shape having a blade about an inch long and half an inch wide, also a tang about the same length and three-eighths of an inch wide. ”

“ When ready for use, these heads were set on the end of the shaft with heated resin and bound in place with sinew which encircled the end of the arrow and crossed diagonally through the barb notches with many recurrences.
Such a point has better cutting qualities in animal tissue than has steel. The latter is, of course, more durable. After entering civilization, Ishi preferred to use iron or steel blades of the same general shape, or having a short tang for insertion in the arrowhead. ”

“ At greater ranges he must estimate a distance above the mark on which he holds his arrow in order to drop it on the object of his shot.
If his shaft flies to the left, it is because he has not drawn the nock beneath his right eye, or he has thrown his head out of line, or the string has hit his shirt sleeve or something has deflected the arrow.
If it falls to the right, it is because he has made a forward, creeping release, or weakened in his bow arm, or in drawing to the center of the jaw instead of the angle beneath the eye. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With the thumb-ring the feathers of an arrow can be placed close to its nock, as the usual space of about 11⁄2 in. need not be left on the shaft at the butt-end lest the fingers holding the bow-string should crush the feathers of the arrow—a precaution that is necessary in all European archery. ”

“ In other cases the shafts consist of straight-growing shoots of trees. Among the Eskimos, [335] where wood is so scarce, a peculiar tool—formed of bone, with an oval or lozenge-shaped hole through it—is used for the purpose of straightening arrow-shafts. The tang of their arrow-heads is inserted in a socket, and bound fast with sinew. ”

“ Elgin, and is in the National Museum at Edinburgh. The edge is formed by the sharp side of a flake, and the sharp angles at the two sides of the arrow-head have been removed by chipping, probably to prevent their cutting the ligaments that attached it to the shaft. Another was found at the same place. A small specimen from Suffolk is in the Christy Collection, and I have a few from the same county. Canon Greenwell has obtained others from Yorkshire. It is questionable whether the specimens like Fig. 231 ought not also to have been classed as arrow-heads. ”

“ In the Southwest a sharpened foreshaft of hard wood serves for the head. Arctic and Northwest coast arrows have heads of ivory, bone, wood, or 104copper, as well as of stone; elsewhere they are more generally of stone, chipped or polished. Many of the arrow-heads from those two areas are either two-pronged, three-pronged, or harpoon-shaped. The head is attached to the shaft or foreshaft by lashing with sinew, by riveting, or with gum....
Fig. 83. (S. 1–1.) Pennsylvania types. Many expanding from base. Materials: jasper, quartz, black flint. Deisher collection, Kutztown, Pennsylvania. ”

“ Arrow-shafts are of hard wood, carefully straightened by rolling between two blocks, fitted by means of sinews with stone or flint heads at one end, and pinnated with feathers at the other. The most elastic woods are chosen for the bow, and its force is augmented by tendons glued to its back. ”

“ Stone hammers and axes, obsidian, flint and other arrow-heads, spear-heads, and knives, mortars and pestles, metates or meal grinders, obsidian and flint drills for making holes through stone or shell, bows and arrows,—the bows of tough wood often brought from afar, and the arrows pointed with chipped flint or obsidian, deftly and securely tied to the shaft with tough and durable strings of sinews ”

“ Such arrows might be unfeathered ... (an informant) recalled a bird arrow ... with a barbed wooden point. Deer-bone pointed arrows were sometimes used for killing deer and other game. Voegelin reports that these arrows were also sometimes barbed. Flint-tipped arrows were about thirty 72 inches long ... arrows for small game were somewhat shorter than flint-tipped arrows ... the wood was ordinarily dried before it was used. The end of the Serviceberry foreshaft was cut into a dowel which was inserted in the soft pithy center of the main shaft, the juncture being wrapped with sinew. ”

“ When they are seasoned, which takes several weeks, the bundles are taken down, the covering removed, and the bark scraped off. The wood is very tough then, and of a yellowish color. The next process is to cut the arrow shafts exactly one length, and in this great care must be used; for arrows of different lengths fly differently, and, unless they are alike, the hunter's aim is destroyed. Another reason for measuring the length of arrows is to identify them; for no two warriors shoot arrows of precisely the same length. ”

“ Looking down upon the Arrow with which it had been pierced, it found that the shaft of the Arrow had been feathered with one of its own plumes. ”

“ Arrow-shafts of the simplest kinds are reeds, canes, or stems of wood. In the Arctic region they are made of driftwood or are bits of bone lashed together, and are rather short, owing to the scarcity of material. The foreshaft is a piece of ivory, bone, or heavy 105wood. Among the Eskimo foreshafts are of bone or ivory on wooden shafts; in California, of hard wood on shafts of pithy or other light wood; from California across the continent to Florida, of hard wood on cane shafts. The shaftments in most arrows are plain ”

“ The arrows themselves are not calculated for long ranges, as they are merely little strips of wood a foot or so in length, and about the sixth of an inch in diameter. They owe their terrors, not to their sharpness, nor to the velocity with which they are impelled, but to the poison with which their tips are imbued. Indeed, they are so extremely light that they cannot be merely laid on the groove of the shaft, lest they should be blown away by the wind. They are therefore fastened in their place with a little piece of gum, of which the archer always takes care to have a supply at hand. ”

“ Arrows will be found to wear out quite speedily enough without being subjected to ill-usage or neglect to hurry them through their short lives.
It appears to be well authenticated that if a light-chested flight-arrow be feathered at each end, with the feathers trimmed lower at the nock than at the pile end, when shot against the wind it will return back again like a boomerang. And if the same-shaped arrow be feathered in the middle only, it will in its flight make a right angle, and no power of bow can send it any considerable distance. ”

“ Proofs that they actually followed such a mode of life are afforded by the implements for fishing and hunting, formed of stone and bone, which are constantly discovered in the earth. Among the weapons of the chase the arrow-heads are particularly distinguished. They are often of flint, a few inches long, and sometimes triangular or flat, sometimes heart-shaped, which last as a rule are formed with such care that the sides are very finely notched. One peculiar kind of arrows consists of small pieces of bone, in which splinters of flint are inserted. ”

“ In some of the arrows, especially those designed for use in war, the foreshaft is notched, or else loosely attached to the main shaft, in order that it may be detached from the main shaft and remain in the body of enemy or prey. ”

“ 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 pile of the arrow should not be drawn on to the bow. It is far better that no arrow be drawn further than exactly to the pile; and every arrow should be longer, by at least as much as the pile, than the archer's actual draw. The danger of overdrawing, in that the arrow at the loose gets set inside the bow, to its own certain destruction and to the bow's and the archer's infinite risk, is very considerable. ”

“ Then make sure that it is stiff enough to stand the force of the bow without bending, as, if too weak, it will never fly straight. The pile or point should be what is called the square-shouldered pile; some prefer the sharp pile, but the other answers best for all purposes. The nock should be full and the notch pretty deep; a piece of horn should be let in at the notch to prevent the string splitting the arrow. The feathers should be full-sized, evenly and well cut, and inserted at equal distances from each other, as shown in the plate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In order to test its strength or stiffness the arrow must be held by the nock, with its pile placed on some solid substance. The hand at liberty should now be pressed downwards on the middle of the arrow. A very little experience as to whether the arrow offer efficient resistance to this pressure will suffice to satisfy the archer about its stiffness. An arrow that is weaker on one side than on the other should also be rejected. ”

“ Two things are essential to a good arrow, namely, perfect straightness, and a stiffness or rigidity sufficient to stand in the bow, i.e. to receive the force of the bow as delivered by the string without flirting or gadding; for a weak or supple is even worse than a crooked arrow—and it need hardly be said how little conducive to shooting straight is the latter. The straightness of the arrow is easily tested by the following simple process. ”

“ Leaf-shaped and tanged arrow-heads appear to be rarer. Some scarce triangular forms are equilateral, and others long and somewhat expanding at the base. I have a series from Heistert, Roermond, Limburg.
In Central and Southern Germany flint arrow-heads appear to be rather scarce. In Pomerania the prevailing type is triangular hollowed at the base. The same form occurs in Thuringia. In the Königsberg Museum there are arrow-heads leaf-shaped pointed at both ends, lozenge-shaped, slightly tanged, tanged and barbed, and triangular with and without the hollowing at the base. ”