Miwok bows

[loon]

Recently I visited a Miwok museum, saw some bows. Love the short static contact recurves.



http://www.primitivearcher.com/smf/index.php/topic,24267.15.html

I noticed this old thread from 2011. It looks a LOT like that little bow in the display case I saw. But I wonder.. Why the upper half of the incense cedar branch, and not the lower, compression one?

[High-Desert]

Thanks for posting pics like this! I spend so much time looking for museum pics online trying to find various native bows, are museums nearby that have native bows.
I wonder the same thing. You would think that if it's being backed, that the compression wood would be more beneficial. I debated trying this with my next vine maple bow since a lot of that reflex from VM is lost during tillering.

[loon]

And incense cedar is a softwood, isn't it, so the compression wood should work better at least if moisture is high enough..

I took a few more pics but transferring from the phone is annoying, and sadly none of the whole bow. Sigh

[High-Desert]

Incense cedar is soft and low density, but apparently it holds its own in compression.
Would you be willing to email some of the other pics to me? Any close ups of the arrows?

[loon]

Maybe I can go back one day and take better pictures... but these are all the archery relevant pictures I took. So sorry for all the blur and out of focus. Though thinking twice, I'm not completely sure if they'd appreciate it I can't really find pictures of their museum online and googling the text of the descriptions yields nothing

I held a mock orange arrow and it was very thick like a warbow arrow but rather bendy and soft. Supple, weak spine for the diameter.

I would like some phragmites, I live in SoCal

They also used foreshafted phragmites for arrows. I was told they hunted up to 30 feet away.

https://postimg.org/gallery/15b99ko1m

They also had a self flatbow they allowed visitors to touch, didn't take many pictures of it though. It just looked like a normal flatbow without a thick handle but probably bendy, but a bit narrowed

[loon]

mystery wood flatbow... they also had atlatl on display. Flintknapping. Weaving stuff. Some interesting method of reverse twisting...