Arrows

“ We read in Scripture of three sorts of Arrows—the arrow of an enemy, the arrow of pestilence, and the arrow of a slanderous tongue; the two first kill the body, the last the good name; the two former leave a man when he is once dead, but the last mangles him in his grave. ”

“ Our sharpest arrows, shot from the most powerful bows do not harm it. It roars at night so that the sound of its voice may be heard a distance of a full day’s travel and it slays on sight but does not devour the men it kills. ”

“ O son of Khesib, when thou awakest, dig under thy feet and thou wilt find a bow of brass and three leaden arrows, inscribed with talismanic characters. Take the bow and shoot the arrows at the horseman on the top of the dome and rid mankind of this great calamity. When thou shootest at him, he will fall into the sea and the horse will drop at thy feet: take it and bury it in the place of the bow. ”

“ Their arrows are full a yard and a half long, with large heads of very bad iron rudely shaped. They are, indeed, the only savages I ever knew that take no pains in the make or ornament of this weapon. A branch of a palm, stript from the tree and made straight, becomes an arrow; and none of them have wings to them. They have this remarkable custom, which is a religious one, that they fix upon their bows a ring, or thong, of the skin of every beast slain by it, while it is yet raw, from the lizard and serpent up to the elephant. ”

“ She bends her bow, and shoots her arrows at him. He only becomes more ardent, and is on the point of seizing her. In despair, she takes an arrow, and buries it in her lovely body. Lo! she is changed, she stops, smiles, loves, draws near him. ”

“ You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.Then said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving. ”

“ The arrows do not hurt the plumage as the shot would, because at the end of each one there is a piece of wood, shaped something like an acorn, but as large as a teacup, and the large end of it makes what would be the point of an ordinary arrow. ”

“ Making arrows is not a simple thing, is it, my master?
Robin Hood. Indeed, no; if the feathers be too short, the arrows will not keep true to their course; and if the feathers be too long, the arrows will not fly swiftly.
Little John. If all men knew how to make arrows, their skill in shooting would seem greater. Look to your arrows, say I, before you shoot. ”

“ Look your arrows over; see that they are straight and that the feathers are in good shape, then shoot them to observe their flight. Number them above the ribbon so that you can keep record of their performances. The weight of such an arrow is one and one-half ounces.
The small blunt, barb-headed arrows we often paint red their entire length. Because they are meant for use in the brush, they are more readily lost; the bright color saves many a shaft.
To make a hunting arrow requires about an hour, and one should be willing to look for one almost this time when it is lost. ”

“ While the howling and the dancing continue, the great chief of the nation, mounting the three posts in triumph, plucks the arrows from the dead body and casts them into the fire. The iron-barbed arrow being the only one preserved for future sacrifices. ”

“ When they have collected a store of these arrows, they take sides and, armed with little bows, engage in a regular battle. The arrows fly as thick as hail, and though no one is killed, many receive skin wounds and are covered with blood. ”

“ And after the arrow has left the bow, hold the pose! Carry through! Imagine yourself as a statue of an archer, and stay just in that position until you hear the arrow strike.
Just in the beginning, at forty yards, with thirty arrows, you may be satisfied if you hit the target between sixteen and twenty-one times out of the thirty shots and make a score of from sixty to eighty points. Your ambition will be, as in golf, to "break" a hundred. By the time you have done that your muscles will be in shape and you can begin on the American Round. ”

“ 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. ”

“ More difficult to make than the bow is the arrow. The Indians made arrows of reeds and of straight shoots of arrow-wood or of elder, but we make better arrows out of hickory or ash. The arrow should be twenty-five inches long, round, and three-eighths of an inch thick. It should be notched at one end to take the bow-string, and just below this notch it should have three feathers set around at equal intervals. ”

“ They have every one of them two sorts of arrows: the one to defend himself and offend the enemy, the other to kill his victuals. These for fight are somewhat like the Scottish arrow; only somewhat longer, and headed with iron, wood, or fish bones. ”

“ The arrows were of different lengths, but each warrior used the one length, if he could, so that he would shoot alike, every time. Each warrior knew his own arrows, by a private mark—by length or by pattern of stem or of feathers. ”

“ My roving shafts are more harmless even than bird bolts, and can hurt none on whom they fall. The arrows with which I take aim carry tokens of remembrance and love, and may be likened to those by which intelligence has been conveyed into besieged places. ”

“ The men are never seen without bows and arrows of large and heavy dimensions. Like all the belongings of the Santa Cruzians, the arrows show artistic taste, being carefully carved and painted so as to display black carving on a white and red ground. The points of the arrows are made of human bone. ”

“ Finding arrows is an acquired art. Don't forget the advice of Bassanio: "In my school days when I had lost one shaft, I shot his fellow of the self-same flight, the self-same way, with more advised watch to find the other forth ”

“ You see, an arrow must be straight or it'll fly crooked. 'Straight as an arrow' means the thing itself. We can do better than the Indians 'cause we have better tools. We can split them out of the solid wood."
"What wood? Some bloomin' foreign kind that no White-man never saw nor heard of before?"
"No sir-ree. There ain't anything better 'n White Pine for target and Ash or Hickory for hunting arrows. Which are we making?" ”

“ So entirely were his movable goods exhausted, that he was obliged to sell his arrows to buy herrings, or other meat for his table: --
"Our arms and ornaments of gold To buy us food we gladly sold: The arrows of the bow gave we For the bright arrows of the sea."1 Endnotes (1) Herrings, from their swift darting along, are called the arrows of the sea. ”

“ Accordingly, in practice, the chested arrow has always a tendency to fly to the left. These chested arrows are mostly flight-arrows, made very light, for long-distance shooting, and they are made of this shape to prevent their being too weak-waisted to bear steadily the recoil of very strong bows. ”

“ Bows 'about thirty inches long ... arrows are a species of reed ... spears are pointed with bone.' Delano's Life on the Plains, p. 306. 'The quiver of dressed deer-skin, holds both bow and arrows.' Gibbs, in Schoolcraft's Arch., vol. iii., p. 123. 'The point (of the arrow) itself is a piece of flint chipped down into a flat diamond shape, about the size of a diamond on a playing-card; the edges are very sharp, and are notched to receive the tendons with which it is firmly secured to the arrow.' Borthwick's Three Years in Cal., p. ”

“ For this, the number of eight or ten arrows are clenched in the left hand with the bow, and the first one which is thrown is elevated to such a degree as will enable it to remain the longest time possible in the air, and while it is flying, the others are discharged as rapidly as possible; and he who succeeds in getting the greatest number up at once, is “best,” and takes the goods staked. ”

“ The appearance of arrow heads indicates the invention of the bow, and the rise of man from a defensive to an offensive mode of life. The introduction of barbed arrows shows how inventive talent was displaying itself ”

“ The wooden arrows, which have barbed heads, are used for shooting small game. Sometimes wooden arrowheads are set loose in shafts of reed, so that, when the latter are drawn out, the points shall remain in the wound. ”

“ Bows and arrows are of very ancient origin, too remote to trace out their first introduction. The bow was made from selected pieces of driftwood, reinforced by strips of whalebone, and bound with deer sinew. The arrow had two principal forms of head, one of brown flint, the other of deer horn, much longer than the first and nicked on the sides, to make it hold in the wounded game. On being struck, an animal would try to dislodge the arrow, giving the hunter a chance to send a second one, and so it would continue until a lucky shot proved fatal. ”

“ 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 arrow flies whistling among the "birds," touches one or two without bringing them down, rises high above the top of the pole, turns in the air, and comes down again to the ground with a thud. It is the duty of two or three boys to pick up the arrows, and bring them back to the shooters. ”

“ Fond archer, Hope! who tak'st thy aim so far,
That still or short, or wide thine arrows are! ”

“ Most of the stories of bows and arrows relate to the accurate aim of the archers, but here is one which shows the tremendous force by which an arrow may be propelled, if the bow is strong and long enough. A French gentleman named Blaise de Vigenère, says that he saw a Turk, named Barbarossa, an admiral of a ship called the Grand Solyman, send an arrow from his bow, right through a cannon-ball! ”

“ Never use a light arrow with a heavy bow, nor, conversely, a heavy arrow with a light bow. Arrows are generally made of one piece of wood, but sometimes a harder kind is used for the part joining the tip and which is dovetailed into the shaft. ”

“ The bows used are very short, about two-and-a-half feet long, and are kept very tight. The arrows are short and light, generally made of bamboo, or a light cane, and a man with a powerful wrist can send an arrow a considerable distance, and yet hit his target every time. ”

“ The length of the arrow should be regulated by that of the bow, and for bows of five feet in length arrows of two feet are generally used, their length increasing in proportion to that of the bow. When arrows are intended for a long flight, they are generally thickest directly under the feathers, and taper gradually to the pile. ”

“ Butts for archery were established, and bows and arrows were to be let, at so many shots for a penny,—there being abundance of space for a farther flight-shot than any modern archer can lend to his shaft. ”

“ It must be known that when we wounded any of this kind of people with our arrows, which entered inside their bodies, they looked at the arrow, and then drew it forth with much astonishment, and immediately afterwards they died. ”

“ Most people have seen the bows and arrows used by boys in the eastern States, and those who have observed them know how feeble they are, not even being capable of killing the smallest animal. Do not be surprised, then, when I tell you that an Indian with his bow, will send an arrow entirely through a horse, a man, or a buffalo. The shaggy-coated bear or Rocky Mountain lion will fall beneath a few shots from the savage's strong bow, while the fleet wild deer is not swift enough to escape the flight of his arrow. ”

“ They make arrows pointing in the direction they are following, either on the ground or on fences or stones. They hide messages, written on paper or on white stones or pieces of wood, saying how they are getting on ”

“ The use of these words seems to point to a time when iron-tipped arrows were used as cutting instruments, and it is even possible that this is a survival of a time when [587] the Todas were so much isolated that their only iron was that of the tips of their arrows.
FIG. 67 (FROM BREEKS) .—THE FIRST MAN ON THE LEFT IS HOLDING A BOW AND ARROW; THE SECOND A CLUB (PROBABLY THE ‘NANMAKUD’) IN HIS RIGHT HAND, AND THE ‘TADRI’ IN HIS LEFT; THE THIRD MAN IS CARRYING A CLUB, AND THE FOURTH MAN IS PLAYING THE ‘BUGURI.’
The bow and arrow are also mentioned in the legend of Kwoten. ”

“ I have seen a fair exhibition of their archery this day, in a favourite amusement which they call the “game of the arrow” (see plate 60) , where the young men who are the most distinguished in this exercise, assemble on the prairie at a little distance from the village, and having paid, each one, his “entrance-fee,” such as a shield, a robe, a pipe, or other article, step forward in turn, shooting their arrows into the air, endeavouring to see who can get the greatest number flying in the air at one time, thrown from the same bow. ”