Sapling Bow Help

[agd68]

Hey guys , I'm looking at trying to make a bow as close to Native American technique as possible. I figure that as they were a stone age culture until well after first contact they probably used saplings more than split staves. I think they also may have carved the bow green then let it season. What do you think ?

[half eye]

agd68,
      Most of what I know of Native peoples is from the Michigan area (Chippewa, Odawa, Potowottomii, Ho Chunk etc.) You are spot on about the roughing out the bow and then letting it cure (usually on the celing of their Wiikiup or long house near the smoke holes) In this area "spliting" wood was very common (pre-contact). It was so common that most everything they made involved some sort of "splitting" of wood, roots, grasses etc. It might also suprise you to know that their so called "permanent" villiages were "stockaded" (a log wall all the way around). It is my understanding that tress were dropped with "slow-fires" at the base and then split with wedges and stones. They did this for bows, canoe ribs and gunwhales, lacrosse sticks, war-club handles, hardwood baskets and quivers etc. They even split cedar roots for the lashings on canoes. I have a pretty decent pic of a Algonqian bow where you can see that it was infact a squared off "board" so to speak...I'll check on the photo size and attach it to a second post if you are interested?

       Eastern Woodland peoples were pretty darned good at splitting wood, the rest of the native peoples I don't have a clue about.
half eye

[sailordad]

half eye

of course we are interseted in seeing the pic

[agd68]

I would like to see those pics too. I 'm glad someone agrees with my theory. I think that the effort it would take to make stone tools would make working seasoned hard wood staves not worth the effort. More economical to work green wood or an atlatal and darts

[George Tsoukalas]

Cut a sapling 2-3 inches in diameter. Leave the it 2 inches longer than what you normally make for bows to counteract that extra set caused by the crown.   Look for straight pieces with a s few knots as possible.  Big knots should go on the back of the stave. Be sure the string falls on the handle as close to center as possible. With a marker mark 2 lines 2 delineate back form front. Mark of a 4 inch handle. 2 in on either side of center. Remove belly wood with a hatchet.  Leave the handle area alone. Get the limbs bending an inch or 2. Bring it inside  and remove the bark in a few days. Check moisture with meter( 6-10 % depending on wood species)  or weigh it until it stops changing weight for several days. Put it by  heat source. It will dry faster. Make a bow and have fun. jawge

[half eye]

agd,
      Here are the pics of some of the "split" board bows....I titled them so you could tell who's is who's. These are actual museum bows but they did not attribute an exact age to them.
half eye

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[sailordad]

half eye, do you know how long and or wide the ojibwa bows are and what wood they used and or sinewed backed?
i live in ctrl mn.and we had tribes of ojibwa back in the day (to the best of knowledge atleast)and was interested in making one of their style of bows
thought it would be cool to do it with the same materials

[half eye]

Saliordad,
      To the best of my knowlege most of the bands I mentioned used mostly Ash for bows, I'm sure they used others as well, but most all of them used white-wood (northern hardwood). Also I believe that sinew backing was not the normal deal. Not only are the winters really cold....the great lakes area is also very humid (even in winter). A lot of things they made incorporated cordage made from split cedar roots, basswood inner bark etc. instead of sinew. They did use sinew for some specific items such as war arrows (turtle claw heads were lashed on with little sinew) so the claws would be left inside the other guy when his blood softened it up and it was pulled out. Even bow strings were made from some pretty strange stuff....the most common was snapping turtle neck skin and woodchuck hide was another. I know they did use sinew, but mostly they made fine and course cordage from plant fibers and I think it's because the dampness raised hell with sinew. An example is their canoes....the ojibwa (chippewa) were expert canoe builders and they used split cedar root for sewing the hull bark together....they even had to mix animal fat with their pitch so it would remain soft in winter to seal the canoe seams.
       Anyway I know ash was the prefered wood, especially amoungst the Odawa and Ojibwa. One other thing the early white people were not to savy about who belonged to whom so they tended to call all the natives in the great lakes Ojibwa so take it with a grain of salt when reading old texts.
       As far as I know the bows were about 1.5 inches wide and maybe 3/4 inches thick...they were usually measured by "fingers" two wide and one deep. Some were D bow and some had the rigid handles. The Ojibwa had mostly rigid handles (not all) and Odawa had mostly D bows (not all) bows were anywhere from 36" long to the low 50's a lot were 48 to 50.
half eye

[sailordad]

cool beans
thank you sir

[Hillbilly]

agd, if you're working with stone tools, doing most of the work while the wood is green is definitely the only way to go. If you'll look up vol. 15, # 2 of Wilderness Way magazine, there's an article in there I did about a friend and I making a sapling Eastern-woodland style bow with stone tools (with a cameo appearance by Pat B ). It pretty much details the process with pics. It was easier than I would have thought.

[agd68]

Sounds like that would make a great how to topic Hillbilly