Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: half eye on January 28, 2010, 12:03:32 pm
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Fellas,
I found some fairly good photos of carved bows of various types, maybe you all can keep them for refference material if you want. The first 5 are eastern woodland style and #6 is actually a carved Plains style with edge carvings (never seen one of these before). If you look at the photo # M 12639 it's in the style of the Ojibwa and/or Potawatamii but check out the recurved lower limb...but not the upper....sort of blew me away.
Just thought ya might like to see some "strange" bows......they are all in the collection of the Musee McCord Museum (Montreal)
half eye ;)
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Enjoyed the pics. Thanks for sharing. Do you have any dimensions on the bows, even if they are approximations?
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I think that all the bows have about 4" to 4&1/2 inch grips (the first one is about 5 or 5&1/2) I was going to use that as a guide to figure the overall length.....but if you contacted the museum maybe they'd tell you what the overall was actually? Sometimes they wont talk with you and sometimes they will....
If you want to make a replica for yourself I would just guestimate and call it good....personally.
half eye ;)
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Brilliant photos! Thanks! Quite inspirational.
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Very interesting and remarkable. Half-eye, you are going outside of the box by exposing us to some art! Thanks for the current research!
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Glad to help if I can.....heck ya never know when you might get a "inspiration block" and look one of them up....and get yerselvers into a bunch of trouble......no warrantee implied ;D
half eye ;)
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Really good post. I do like the art end of all this stuff. Thanks for posting.
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Great stuff!
Any more details??
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Medicinewheel and XIN:
I went back to the site and dug around and found out some specs for the bows....I'll wirte down the photo number and the facts that they listed.
UA 210: Wood (pine), paint, sinew dated between 1865-1900 dim: 2.8 X 110.5 cm
ACC 3202 C : wood, paint 1875-1925 2.3 X 101.5 cm
M 435: 1800-1813 wood, pigment 5.1 X 130 cm
M 12639 1865-1915 wood, pigment 3.2 X 133 cm
M 12663 1865-1915 wood, paint, sinew 3.8 X 142.5 cm
Plains Bow 1865-1925 wood, hide, horsehair, feather, cotton cord, pigment 15X 118.2 cm
half eye ;)
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Looks like I need to get my passport straight and head up to Montreal soon. It stinks that we need one for that now >:( The last time I was in Montreal I saw some pretty spectacular sights, but I wasn't there to visit any museums >:D
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Howdy HalfEye and Group,
I was just at the Milwaukee Public Museum yesterday. I noticed a bow on display that was scalloped (four of them) on the lower limb only. Between the scallops, there was a groove (or notch), (three of them) cut through the edge of the bow.
So, I guess that symmetry was not always the order of the day for these types of bows.
Thanks for sharing your insight and interest in native, Primitive Archery,
Canoe
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Way Cool....would you have any pics of them? I'd be interested in seeing them too :) It doesn't really suprise me much though because of all the interchange in Wisconsin area within the Algonquian groups, but it would be cool to see them.
half eye ;)
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Luv the wicked old bows. Makes one imagine the maker.
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Excellent photos!
The second bow looks like a southern plains bow and the last one looks like a Cherokee bow, in my humble opinion. The other bows look ceremonial...Eastern Woodlands for sure. Very interesting.
:)
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is it the belly thats carved on the bows? if not what keeps the back ring from going?
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ohma,
No it's the backs that are carved, I'm throwing in a pic or two that shows the belly side of M435....the writing on it is from the original collector...but you can tell it is not decorated at all by the maker.....I'm willing to swear to it but I believe that Eastern Woodland NA used both horizontal and vertical grained wood for bows. #M435 is the only bow that they took a slew of pics and there are more of the belly but I didn't download 'em all.....I can get some more if it would help any.
Also, it looks to me from the photo of the plains bow that it IS carved on the belly (the saw teeth) but I could be wrong.
half eye ;)
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thanks , i just cant believe they dont blow up.i would like to give that a try.have always wanted to incorporate my carving with my bows.
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Some of the guys asked about some other tribes so I looked around for examples from some of those. The museum photos came from the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian).
There are 5 identified from 1880 from displaced bands in Oklahoma, the last one is from the Anishinaabe (Walpole Island, Ontario) hope these help. I'm sorry I cant remember which guys asked or what posts they were in....gettin old aint a lot of fun :(
half eye ;)
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I think alot of it was choice of wood, since several seem to be flat grained. I know hickory very commonly had the rings violated, and I suspect elm can handle it too. Native Americans had no problem using an edge grained split, like on some Wampanoag style bows, and I recall that they would sometimes split a sapling, and use the outer growth ring as the belly, and the flat split side as the back. They likely discovered quickly, through trial and error, which species they could get away with carving, and which they couldn't. This would be why you don't see any carved osage bows, but find plenty of carved hickory bows. They didn't know of any "rules" to bowmaking, aside from the ones they discovered themselves.