Quality of natives bows

[riverrat]

i seen a post with a bow that was said to belong to Techumseh, that bow in that picture is a piece of art. id even recon it never was shot.i know id just carry it around for ohhs and ahhs. lol, then in that book that encyclopidia of bows book, i seen a hickory bow, kind of ruff looking, cut through the rings here and there, but looked like a bow that one would shoot, get the job done and not worry about it. i like bows somewhere in between. not too pretty but not so violated it will last only a short time.im thinking that most folks back then were more concerned with dinner and staying alive than something pretty. but there were leaders who had to dress the part you might say. im sure these guys had the finest made pieces.you couple that with the idea that some were great craftsmen, and some were not and you can get a pretty good idea of what it must of been like as for bows.Tony

[PEARL DRUMS]

So what I'm reading is some guys were much better at building bows than others in their respective tribes. Wonder if the guys that could barely hack a serviceable bow out felt severe angst against the guys that could knock out real beauties? Probably not. Seems childish to me.

[Pat B]

I believe that most NA bows were tools and made to do a job and not necessarily to show off. Their thought patterns were way different than ours today. Some I've seen in in museums had grain violations and took a lot of set. Others were as well made as any I've ever seen.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Pat, I can promise you if my life was dependant on my bow, be it self defense or groceries, it would be perfect all around. No way would I risk anything.

[riverrat]

"So what I'm reading is some guys were much better at building bows than others in their respective tribes. Wonder if the guys that could barely hack a serviceable bow out felt severe angst against the guys that could knock out real beauties? Probably not. Seems childish to me." i doubt it. the guys that werent as good probley had to do a little trading with the ones that were better at it.or maybe it made the not so good bowyers better warriors, kill the enemy with a club and get yourself a nice bow.lol must of been a reason behind counting coup.i dont see these folks as feeling angst because of material things. Tony

[Aaron H]

Pat, I can promise you if my life was dependant on my bow, be it self defense or groceries, it would be perfect all around. No way would I risk anything.
x2

[Springbuck]

Having never been to a museum with any archery stuff I'm wondering if replicas are always clearly marked as such or does that depend on the museum?

You might try looking through the Smithsonian Museum's "North American Ethnographic Collection" online.  Just google it.  They have a few hundred examples of bows from all over North America.  many are in rough shape, and I always wish they had more than a couple pictures, but they are good examples.

[Spotted Dog]

At MU in Colombia Missouri is Dr Grayson's collection. From what I could see the finish was nice. The roughest was an Inuit bow. That could be the state it was in when collected.

[sieddy]

I live in Oxford city in the UK and so am lucky to live near some extraordinarily great museums. My favourite is the Pitt Rivers museum of anthropology, which has a fantastic collection of bows (amongst other fearsome weapons!) I was in there the other day looking at the bows and was again struck by the beauty and quality of the native north american ones. Theyve got self, sinew (and snakeskin)d backed and horn horsebows. Also Californian paddle bows and a great collection of pellet bows. I tried to take photos but they didnt work cos of the reflection on the glass cases. At some point l want to see if someone from the museum will talk me through em and maybe get them out of the case's to be photographed! :-)

[Redhand]

The bow was a warriors most prized possessions so he wanted the best bow he can get.  If he couldn't build it himself he would do some trading.  That is why the sheep horn and elk antler bow were so highly prized bows. In some tribes when a warrior passed he was buried with his bow and his horse was killed and buried with him also.

[bubby]

I have a very old bow from Vietnam with bamboo stribg and arrows, while there is some checking on the back the wood is smoothly finished