Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1893 — How Indians Make Bows. [ARTICLE]

How Indians Make Bows.

Every tepee has its bow wood himg up with the arrows in the smoke of the fire, well out of reach of the flames. A warrior with a sharp knife and a sandstone or file can make a bow in three days if he works hard, but it most generally takes a week, and sometimes a month, to finish a fancy bow. When done it is worth $3 in trade. The bows differ in length and strength, being gauged for the arms of those who are to use them. A white man would, until he learned the sleight of it, find himself unable to bend even the weakest war bow. The force of such an arrow may be imagined when it is remembered that, while a Colt’s revolver will not send a ball through a buffalo, an arrow will ga through a buffalo and come out on the other side. A man's skull has been found transfixed to a tree by an arrow which had gone completely through the bones and imbedded itself so deep in the wood as to sustain the weight of the head. lie had been tied up to the tree and shot. Bows are made of all kinds of wood. The best are made of Osage orange, hickory, oak, ash, elm, cedar, willow, plum, cherry, bullberry, and from the horns of elk and mountain sheep. No Indian who cannot handle the strong bow is deemed fit for war. There are three bows, the baby bow used bv the children, the long bow, and, last of all, the strong bow. The Sioux and Crows make the best bows. The Sioux bow is generally four feet long. AVhen unstrung it is perfectly straight. Some bows are covered and strengthened and made more vitally elastic on the back by being strung with sinews. In such instances the hack of • the bow is flattened, then roughened with a file or stone, the sinew being afterward glued on. The sinew is then lapped at the middle or grasp of the bow and at the ends. The string is attached while green, twisted and left to dry on the bow. The whole outside of the sinew is now covered with a new solution of glue and the bow is done. These bows are painted, beaded, velveted, and leathered. Tue Crows make jointed bows out of elk horn. To do this they take a large horn or prong and saw a slice off each side of it. These slices are then filled or rubbed down until the flat sides fit nicely together, when they are glued and wrapped at the ends. Four slices make a bow, such a fourfold bow being jointed. Another piece of horn is laid on the centre of the bow, at the grasp, where it is glued fast. The whole is then filed down until it is perfectly proportioned, when the bone is ornamented, carved and painted. . Nothing can exceed the beauty of these bows. It takes an Indian about three months to make one. They are very expensive. The Indians, as a rule, do not sell them. In travelling the arrows are sheathed in a quiver made generally of the skin of the puma or mountain lion. The bow sheath is generally of the same stuff.— ! Globe-Democrat.