Trails Across The Prairies
The Primitive Archer
Seen here is my self bow built from a single piece of Hickory. Many years ago on the North American plains, the bow and arrow became the most natural weapon for the Plains Indian Warrior. It was the first childhood plaything of which he had recollection. Proud fathers placed a miniature bow and a few blunted arrows in their son's hands before they were four years old, and from then on, they practiced constantly until shooting with them became an instinctive part of their nature. Although the introduction of the bow is quite recent in the Americas, by the time the first white man arrived it was widely used by natives on both continents.
The most common type of bow was the simple wood bow or self-bow which was made of a single piece of wood. Osage and yew were the best bow woods, although the Plains Indians used a large variety of other woods such as ash which was one of the most popular bow woods on the Plains. They also used hickory, elm, maple, black locust, oak, and birch. Besides the plain self wood bow, native bowyers built rawhide and sinew lined bows. These bows were often shorter but also stronger and powerful.
I'm finding this bow fun to shoot in comparisom to the other bows part of my collection of bows. It is quite quiet when an arrow is cast, although it does have some hand shock although minimal. Because I am using my hand as an arrow rest, I wear a bow glove on my left hand that holds the bow to minimize damage to my hand from the fletching of the arrow as it passes over my hand.
