Primitive Archer
Main Discussion Area => Bows => Topic started by: coaster500 on April 25, 2012, 05:24:52 pm
-
I have a 43 inch chunk of Yew that I want to make a short Hupa or Klamath Indian type bow. My question is should I use any of the sapwood or take it down to the heart? I have the sinew set aside for this bow I'm just trying to lay it out.
The stave is pretty round across the back...
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/Indian%20bow%20project%20Yew/CaliforniaBowProject002.jpg)
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/Indian%20bow%20project%20Yew/CaliforniaBowProject003.jpg)
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/Indian%20bow%20project%20Yew/CaliforniaBowProject004.jpg)
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/Indian%20bow%20project%20Yew/CaliforniaBowProject005.jpg)
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/Indian%20bow%20project%20Yew/CaliforniaBowProject006.jpg)
-
sorry-no knowledge/experience regarding yew...
but i have a very similar stave of yew in the shed...
being eying it for nearly two years now trying to figure out where to start-
thinking similar to you, sinew back, short and wide...
so i will be watching here to see what folks gotta say.
-
I've heard of heavy sinew backing separating sap wood from heart wood. Id probally remove the sap wood. The limbs will be very thin you'll need that thickness to work for you.
Then again...
Ive seen a few sinew backed yew with sap wood.
-
sadiejane, not much farther than you with this thing but did peel the bark off :)
Thank you sharpend60 ... I think I'll end up doing that if I don't get any more feedback
If no one speaks up I guess I'll take it down to the heart wood and make the back flat. There is no way I can chase a ring on this thing unless it's the very first one but the back is so curved that I don't think it will work for this wide short bow? The sinew should take care of the violations, I hope???
-
Since no has spoke up yet ill take a shot at it ;)....although i have not made such a bow yet,but will be doing so sometime relatively soon ;) i have decrowned erc to get heartwood in a sinewed bow and the sinew will take care of any ring violations. And i plan on doing the same with one of my yew staves here in the future. Go for it. Some tribes in the northwest did rip the sapwood off to sinew back it.
I usually dont like to comment and give advice to things i havent done before,so take it for what its worth. ;)
-
i've seen pics of some original's that you can see sap wood from the belly, maybe do a search and see what you come up with, Bub
-
Thank guys I guess I'll just wing it and see how it turns out :)
-
You can read about Ishi's bow in TBB 4. Some bows show no sign of sapwood, and others show a little sapwood on the belly. read through and see what you think.
Tell
-
Pretty sure they're usually all heratwood but i've seen dudes make 'em with sapwood.
Good luck, that's a perty piece of yew.
-
Hi coaster 500,
I've made several West Coast Style bows, so I can speak from experience.
I would absolutely Decrown the billet until the Sapwood only shows along the edges. The majority of the bow should be heartwood since the heartwood is lighter, and the Sinew is heavy, it's best to get rid of as much sapwood as possible.
I have chased the first growth ring of heartwood before, and had excellent results, however I think that this was unecessary and probably just extra work. Yew can be badly violated on the backing, and still produce sub 50lb self bows.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7E7zekzjOk
That is a 5 Minute Video of me making a Sinew Backed Yew Shorty. I hope that Helps.
-
Coaster, I'm watching this one. I have a 45" piece i'm getting ready to do also. I've been wanting to make one of these for a while.
-
PaleoNinja, great video!!
Question? You applied the sinew fibers dry to bow... does this work as well as soaking them first. I have never used sinew before so that's why I ask. This is the first time I've seen it done this way.
Thank you for posting
-
coaster the original Homer Yurok bow build videos are back up on youtube now :). I just rewatched them taking notes this time. I am working on a 40" hupa bow right now too. Looks to me like Homer leaves a layer of sapwood, however, I did not on my hupa bow in progress...wondering if I should have now. Also, it looks like homer applies the sinew dry and then tamps it down while applying glue. The one time he dips the sinew in glue is for reinforcing the nocks.
-
Thanks Coaster,
You can apply the sinew dry if you've strung the bow into reflex, since the sinews will not shrink. Honestly however I reccomend doing it the normal way, wet and combed.
-
CMB what was the you tube video called??? I put Homer Yurok in the search and nothing came up???
PaleoNinja ... I think you're right I'll apply wet and combed to help support my newbee bowyer skills :)
Thank you guys...
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPcE2HkH-AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZHFg5MswnI&feature=relmfu
-
Thank you
-
i am delighted they put those vids back up.
have watched them over and over-they simply fascinate me...
thanks for the links
-
simply conjecture on my part but I can't imagine that many of that style of bow was truly flat on the back
(for aesthetic reasons as well as the work involved in flattening it.) I think I'd be more inclined to leave a bit of crown along the back.
of course a lot of this has to do with one particular bow I made with a flat back and sinew backing and while it
shot perfectly fine I was never crazy about the look of it.
-
While these bows are practically flat compared to more common designs. They do have a slight crown, and most are lenticular in cross section. I noticed in TBB 1, there is a discussion of belly cracks on sinew-backed bows, and Tim Baker suggests it is due to the lateral forces applied from the stretching of the sinew. If that is the case, these near-flat paddle bows are immune to such belly cracks by design. The thin yew can simply bend with the lateral forces.
-
This is a drawing of Ishi's bow shows a slightly crowned belly and back.
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/untitled-5.jpg)
-
funny that you post the drawing of that bow as that's what I generally think of when someone mentions a west coast
bow.
I made a bow based on those dimensions out of sinew backed eastern red cedar (mostly sapwood) and it is a
$*@# blast to shoot, though I'm not terribly accurate with it that may have had more to do with not having
properly spined arrows for it.
I don't think the bow in the pic was backed however....simply pointing out the difference in Ishi's bow and mine..
-
pic of my Ishi bow. not sure his would have had quite this profile but the sinew pulled in a bit more reflex
than I expected.
(http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l18/doanehead/P1030927-1.jpg)
-
Sonny very nice bow !! I posted the picture as it showed a cross section of his bow. I'm sure there were as many variations as there are tribes :) It would seem though that Ishi's bow was rawhide backed and slightly crowned belly and back according to this source.
This was the source of the picture...
Description of a bow made by Ishi, the Last Yahi
by Chris Watson, ©1997
Introduction
Imagine a piece of wood slightly curved at each end, with a backing to one side of the wood, a handgrip of woolen tape in the middle, and a string connecting the two ends. This is a bow that was made by the last Yahi Indian, Ishi, while he was living at a museum in San Francisco during the last years of his life. I chose this object as my subject because Ishi's character impresses me, and one of the things I learned about him is that more than anything else, he loved his bow best (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 173). I hoped that by being close to one of the actual bows made by Ishi, I would gain some insight into his life.
Specific description
This is a hunting bow made of Oregon yew, with a thin backing of rawhide. The width and thickness of the wood varies with smooth curves according to its position on the bow. Saxton Pope, Ishi's friend, doctor, archery student and companion, describes this as one of Ishi's best bows. The following drawing is reproduced from the bottom of page 176 of Ishi the Last Yahi: A Documentary History, which is a collection of reprints of source materials. The original was from an article published in 1918 by Dr. Saxton Pope titled “Yahi Archery” in Vol. 13, No. 3 of University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology.
This bow was made by the last survivor of the Yahi tribe from Northern California, closely related to the Yana. They spoke a Hokan language that was unusual in that there were separate forms for male and female speech. This tribe may have been in California a very long time. Even before white settlers came, later arriving Penutian speaking tribes that outnumbered them had pushed this tribe into the hills (Benson). The Yahi lived in a rugged landscape in the hills to the east of the Sacramento Valley. When white settlers came, took their land, and killed the deer, these Indians sometimes had nothing else to eat but the white men's horses and cattle. Yet when they did this, retaliation was swift from the settlers. The Yahi were hunted and exterminated like vermin, and the men who did this were local heroes.
As for the man who crafted this magnificent bow, we never did learn his name for himself. Kroeber wrote in “Ishi, the Last Aborigine”: “The strongest Indian etiquette…demands that a person shall never tell his own name, at least not in reply to a direct request” (Kroeber: 12). Kroeber called him Ishi, which means “man” in Yana, and that is all we know him by.
The bow belongs to the University of California Museum of Anthropology, now in Berkeley. It is Museum number 1-19590. Ishi crafted this bow sometime between 1911 and 1916. Its length is 44 inches, which is shorter than most of the bows Ishi made and used. The bow “weighs” or pulls 40 pounds, which according to Dr. Pope was Ishi's favorite for hunting bows (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 177).
The materials used were Oregon yew with rawhide for the backing. The handgrip is woolen tape. The Eskimo also make bows with backing. It is a superior device to those without backing (Benson). While living at the museum, Ishi made bows from many different woods, but his favorite material for the bows he lived by was mountain juniper (T. Kroeber: 189). He told the anthropologists that other tribes used yew, and he knew the leaves were poisonous to eat (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 175).
Saxton Pope describes in “Yahi Archery” how Ishi made a bow (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 175-177). Dr. Pope spent much time learning archery from Ishi. The production of a bow is a time-consuming labor-intensive process. Ishi selected the wood, seasoned it, shaped it, chewed the animal tissue for the backing and applied that in thin layers, made a string out of more animal sinew, and finally strung the bow. There was much time involved in each step, and between steps as well.
This particular bow was not decorated, although some others were. Ishi seemed to only decorate a bow after it had demonstrated some outstanding virtue or had been involved in some deed of valor (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 177). The bow is beautifully symmetrical, having been carefully shaped and formed by Ishi. “The ideal bow, in his mind, curved in a perfect arch at all points, and at full draw represented a crescent” (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 177). The bow is beautiful yet functional at the same time. Its beauty derives from its carefully crafted form, shaped by traditions passed down to Ishi from untold hundreds, perhaps thousands of years.
Viewing this bow produces mixed feelings in me. I rejoice that people are capable of such craftsmanship. At the same time, I grieve for all the lost opportunities from the genocide of peoples and cultures throughout history. There is a quotation in the film by Jed Riffe and Pamela Roberts that expresses my sentiments exactly about Ishi. When their film shows Ishi leaving Oroville at the train station in 1911, the narrator says: “I would have liked to have had some more time with him. I always thought there was something there I should know, that I would like to know.”
Cultural context
Bows have been around for thousands of years, in most cultures of the world. As for Yahi culture, sadly, not much is known. Even more sadly, there are no living representatives of this tribe and no written tradition. The most we have are the stories that Ishi told during the few years that he lived at the museum. More than anything else, these give us a clue to his culture's worldview. However, even where we have the words to translate these stories literally, we do not have the cultural context to know what these stories meant to Ishi and his people (Riffe and Roberts).
Ishi's people had two main functions for bows: hunting and warfare. The bows made specifically for hunting were lighter than those made for warfare. This short bow I described was used most at targets (Heizer and T. Kroeber: 174). Ishi made this bow, and many others, while living at the Anthropology Museum of the University of California Affiliated Colleges on Parnassus Heights in San Francisco (now the site of UCSF) during the last four years of his life (Daybreak Editor). I learned from an Internet document written by Jeff Miller for UCSF that The Anthropology Museum moved to Berkeley in 1931 and over time expanded into the Phoebe Hearst Museum of today (formerly the Lowie Museum).
Ishi used this bow while practicing archery with Saxton Pope, his friend and doctor from the hospital next door to the museum. We do not know Ishi's socio-cultural role in his tribe, for by the time he came of age there were few Yahi left, and he outlived them all. Ishi spent some time making artifacts at the museum, and when he went back to Deer Creek with the anthropologists in 1914 for a field trip he showed them how he selected and shaped the materials in his homeland. As far as I know, this particular bow was not made in his homeland, but at the museum.
Ishi's people had been massacred repeatedly by the white settlers until he was the only one left, yet he showed no bitterness. Ishi died in March 1916 from tuberculosis, a white man's disease for which he had no resistance. When Ishi died, the anthropologist who first spoke to him, T. T. Waterman, said: “He was the best friend I had in the world” (Riffe and Roberts). Pope, Kroeber, and Waterman had come to realize what a friend they had found, and all deeply mourned his loss, as do I.
-
hey kip,you didnt do any research did you...lol...that is some great info you posted...i cant wait to see your bow when done....i do have to say that i am working on a tolowa bow that i see in a book by paul campbell...later john
-
in my reading i've found that Ishi made rawhide and sinew backed bows as well as air backed, Bub
-
Thanks coaster (Kip?) for the compliment as well as posting the info on that bow.
I don't think I had ever seen that article.
I guess my point was that if I had that yew stave I'd make something quite like Ishi's bow.
I wonder what "woolen tape" is ?? they mention that Ishi wrapped the handle with it.
funny (ironic) that I wrapped the grip on mine with a strip of a wool blanket that I grabbed from
my grandmother's house after she passed away.
It's not shown in the pic that I posted as that was taken when I was touching up the tiller.
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPcE2HkH-AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZHFg5MswnI&feature=relmfu
found it interesting that in the first vid around 3:10 they state
something to the effect that it is important to select the tree(speaking of yew)
from a secluded canyon bottom where it will develop straight even grain.
that yews growing at the top(high elev?) in the sun will be more twisty and knotted.
that seems to go against most "modern" thinking about which yew(high vs low elev) is best for bows...
-
I'm not sure yet but if I can pull it off I may make two bows from this stave. One of heartwood and one with the sapwood and heart wood. I think it's thick enough but it does have some knots to deal with??? I might also use rawhide only on the one with sapwood and sinew one the heartwood, what do ya think bubby??? just thinking outloud probably better than talking to myself :)
sonny, not sure where wool tape would play in Ishi's life? Probably just adapted and use what was available to him, like you :)
Man John that's going to be a real shortie!!! "Bows and arrows were used both for hunting and for warfare. The Tolowa used thin pieces of yew wood to make the bow, which was about three feet long."
sadiejane I would think you could still achieve both high altitude and tight or dark growing conditions (canyon). I'm guessing it's more important to find thick growth forest (dark timber) that forces the growth of the tree up instead of out (where's Keenan when ya need him). That way you would get less sucker and shoot growth, twist, knots and straighter grain from trees struggling to reach for the sun. This is pretty much supposition on my part but seems logical to me.
-
sadiejane this is a picture from a hunt in Idaho. I am about 1/3 of the way down the south canyon wall and the dark timber at the bottom is only 200/300 feet below. I had to pack meat out of that bottom and there was Yew in it. This was long before I ever build a bow and I'm glad because I would have probably died trying to get i out!!! My point is ridge or bottom still high altitude.
(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c210/coaster500/Your%20Idaho%20Bear%20Hunt/2010BearhuntIdaho003.jpg)
-
Nice picture. I live here in Idaho, would love to harvest some Idaho yew. It wust be up north? I have heard of yew in Idaho, just is not that common down here in southern Idaho.
Tell
-
I've hunt in Weippe where they are slashing the timber, chippen it up and sending it to China. There was allot of Yew that got killed by that operation. I saw tons of the stuff laying on the ground. Such a waste!! The picture was in the northern part on the Montana border and there were pockets of Yew there also.
-
coaster i think that's a great idea building two bows, remember to consider the anchor point in the pics of Ishi, probablly only about 25", im excited to see what you come up with, Bub