Some stoneage (pre-contact) NA bows (not bom)

[John K]

Cool bows Rich, Thanks for sharring !

[Michael C.]

Reads sound to me, thanks for the info and a long explanation is never a bad thing. I like having to much info than not enough.

[Marc St Louis]

Very nice work Rich.

I was wondering though.  Could you quote your sources for the scalloped bows.  All the research I have done on those types of bows say that the Seneca, Fox, Iroquois and a couple other tribes made them but I've yet to come cross any reference that the Ojibwa made them

[El Destructo]

I know because I grew up looking at them in Display Cases....that the Menominee...Ottowa (Odawa)....Pottowatomi...and Ojibwe Indians of the Upper Peninsula all made Bows with Scallops on one side...whether the Ojibwe of Canada were in to this Style of Bow I do not know...but these 4 Tribes  lived closely together for many centuries ...and may have shared and swapped Bow designs...I know that in the Historical Museum on the Keewenaw Bay  Reservation in Baraga Michigan and the Museum in Marquette...you can see the Scalloped Bows from the Upper Michigan Tribes...I have never seen a Bow from any of these Tribes Scalloped on both sides...for the best of my knowlege....only the Fox did this....

[half eye]

Hey Marc
     Got my info on the Odawa, and Ojibwa bows from the horse's mouth. My source is Mr. Jay Sam (Little River Band of Odawa). There are also actual examples as El Destructo says at several Michigan Museums (including Native American). That's for the bows with the single scalloped side. Mr. Jay Sam and the Musee McCord showing an example of an Annishinabee bow scalloped on both sides. (Photo attached). That bow is attributed to Wallpoll Island.
     I mentioned the fact that there is very little literature on Odawa artifacts, simply because the early whites lumped everybody in this area together as Ojibwa, and generally speaking the Odawa were considered by most whites (English) as "hostile savages" and that persisted from Potiac's wars against Fort Detroit right through to the US Military's attempts to roust them out of what's now Michigan and Wisconsin up to Minnesota. A few (not many) of the Odawa were finally rounded up and sent to Oklahoma....and those bows were completely different than the originals.
Rich

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[Marc St Louis]

I know because I grew up looking at them in Display Cases....that the Menominee...Ottowa (Odawa)....Pottowatomi...and Ojibwe Indians of the Upper Peninsula all made Bows with Scallops on one side...whether the Ojibwe of Canada were in to this Style of Bow I do not know...but these 4 Tribes  lived closely together for many centuries ...and may have shared and swapped Bow designs...I know that in the Historical Museum on the Keewenaw Bay  Reservation in Baraga Michigan and the Museum in Marquette...you can see the Scalloped Bows from the Upper Michigan Tribes...I have never seen a Bow from any of these Tribes Scalloped on both sides...for the best of my knowlege....only the Fox did this....

That doesn't mean that much.  I can show you a lot of pictures of bows that are displayed in a local museum but mostly all are of tribes other than Algonquin.  Just to show you how little the people that work in this museum know, they labelled a totem stick as an Indian fly swatter.

[Marc St Louis]

Hey Marc
     Got my info on the Odawa, and Ojibwa bows from the horse's mouth. My source is Mr. Jay Sam (Little River Band of Odawa). There are also actual examples as El Destructo says at several Michigan Museums (including Native American). That's for the bows with the single scalloped side. Mr. Jay Sam and the Musee McCord showing an example of an Annishinabee bow scalloped on both sides. (Photo attached). That bow is attributed to Wallpoll Island.
     I mentioned the fact that there is very little literature on Odawa artifacts, simply because the early whites lumped everybody in this area together as Ojibwa, and generally speaking the Odawa were considered by most whites (English) as "hostile savages" and that persisted from Potiac's wars against Fort Detroit right through to the US Military's attempts to roust them out of what's now Michigan and Wisconsin up to Minnesota. A few (not many) of the Odawa were finally rounded up and sent to Oklahoma....and those bows were completely different than the originals.
Rich

That's interesting but if you go here http://research.amnh.org/anthropology/database/collections and do a search on Ojibwa bows and of the bows that come up none have scallops

[half eye]

Marc,
     Don't want to argue with ya, just answered your question about what I based my bows on. I can't say what you may or may-not have found but I'm going to take Jays word for it. The bow and war (turtle calw arrows) arrows are displayed at the Little River Band Headquarters, and the Odawa accept them as authentic examples. I'm proud of that.
Rich

[El Destructo]

                                                                               

[Marc St Louis]

Bows that were made within the last 100 years or so cannot be used as historic examples.  Anyone can take a fancy to the scalloped bow and say that this is what their ancestors made, even me.  You need historical proof and I've yet to see some of that.

As an example, there was a Penobscot native that came to the PA board many years ago.  He said that there were rumours in the tribe that the Penobscot double bow was actually a recent "invention" by a tribal member about 100 years ago, give or take.  That kind of throws a monkey wrench into the idea that the double bow was a historic example of a Penobscot.

[Marc St Louis]

I know because I grew up looking at them in Display Cases....that the Menominee...Ottowa (Odawa)....Pottowatomi...and Ojibwe Indians of the Upper Peninsula all made Bows with Scallops on one side...whether the Ojibwe of Canada were in to this Style of Bow I do not know...but these 4 Tribes  lived closely together for many centuries ...and may have shared and swapped Bow designs...I know that in the Historical Museum on the Keewenaw Bay  Reservation in Baraga Michigan and the Museum in Marquette...you can see the Scalloped Bows from the Upper Michigan Tribes...I have never seen a Bow from any of these Tribes Scalloped on both sides...for the best of my knowlege....only the Fox did this....

Mike.  You may see a division at the border and think of them as "the Ojibwa of Canada" but a few hundred years ago the Ojibwa did not.  They were all one nation

[El Destructo]

I do understand that Marc...but what I was getting at is that the Tribes that were nearer the Menominee and Pottowatomi Tribes of Lower Michigan and Wisconsin probably traded Bows and Ideas more easily than the farther North Bands of Ojibwe ...so it is possible that their styles of Bows were adopted by them...so maybe not being a truly Ojibwe Design...they were still an Ojibwe Bow...even though they were introduced to them from outside the Tribe...just my thoughts on the matter

[Marc St Louis]

I do understand that Marc...but what I was getting at is that the Tribes that were nearer the Menominee and Pottowatomi Tribes of Lower Michigan and Wisconsin probably traded Bows and Ideas more easily than the farther North Bands of Ojibwe ...so it is possible that their styles of Bows were adopted by them...so maybe not being a truly Ojibwe Design...they were still an Ojibwe Bow...even though they were introduced to them from outside the Tribe...just my thoughts on the matter

Entirely possible and that thought has crossed my mind before as well.

[profsaffel]

Pardon for coming into this debate but might we consider that this is not so much a matter of whether or not the Ottawa used this style of bow, but when? It is entirely possible that Rich's Ottawa friend clearly and accurately remembers his tribe using this style bow and could be passed on for a generation or two before that, and this could still be a relatively late adoption to the tribes history, say, within the last 150 years.

While it is much more difficult (and possibly impossible) to prove (or disprove) the use of scallops in Ottawa design before Columbus, we have about as much 'evidence' to prove that they did as much as we do that they did not. We also have to consider that while some Ottawa chose to use the scalloped design, some others did not, preferring a more Seneca-like design. It would be as if two thousand years from now, an archaeologist uncovered a Winchester rifle. He would come to the conclusion that Americans of the Southwest used this design, when in fact plenty of people used Remington shotguns. Ok, maybe a bad example, but I think the point is made anyway. If we found a pile of Ottawa bows buried in a peet bog we might have a better idea of what they used regularly, but we don't have that luxury.

Archaeology is the science of rubbish, and most of it is guess-work after that. Still, this is certainly worth further investigation. I know I'm interested.

Rich, anyone written a doctoral dissertation on Ottawa bows?  Might have to consider this for myself... 

Does anyone have a copy of Alleley's Encyclopedia of Bows, Arrows and Quivers Vol. 1Northeast, Southeast and Midwest? I'm curious to know if they address these bows in that work.

-Doug

PS this prof is about to go on vacation in a couple of days. Wish me and the family a good time and safe journey.

[Marc St Louis]

I have that book and there are no museum pieces that show the Ojibwa made that style of bow