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A Note on Indian Bow Making |
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Written by Dick Baugh
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Page 1 of 2
 Sinew, the shredded fibers of animal tendon, was used for cordage,
binding points on arrow shafts, and for backing material for bows. Why
sinew? What are its properties which make it so desirable for these
uses? Obviously it is tough and it shrinks when it dries, but how much?
A fairly extensive search of the Stanford library, asking professors of
biomechanics, mechanical engineering, and archeology yielded no useful
information. It looked like I would have to get my hands dirty and do
some experiments on the stuff but first, what did we already know about
sinew?
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Saxton Pope, a professor of Medicine at the University of California in
the first part of this century, an intimate of Ishi's, and an ardent
bowman, wrote a delightful little book about Indian bows and arrows
titled "Bows and Arrows". He stated that when Ishi made sinew-backed
bows he did not worry much about cutting through the heartwood on the
back of the bow. This was in contrast to all of the old-time books
which describe the fabrication of longbows out of yew, osage orange, or
any of the other classic bowyer's woods. The standard caveat when
building a self bow (wood only) was to be very careful about having the
back of the bow (the part away from the archer) follow the grain of the
wood exactly or else it would break where you cut through the wood
fibers.
Pope also did experiments with miniature yew bows backed with rawhide
or catgut. His conclusion was that adding the backing made very little
increase in the cast or ability of the bow to shoot a long distance.
Therefore, he concluded, the presence of the backing only protected the
back where the grain wasn't parallel and prevented the bow from
breaking at full draw. Pope is to be commended for doing experiments
but more needs to be done to understand what sinew does.
The Eskimos also made sinew-backed bows but in their frigid and damp
climate it was impossible to do anything with glue, so their sinew was
applied in the form of twisted cordage tied on the back of the bow. The
tension in the backing material was increased by twisting after it was
bound to the back of the bow (see Callahan, Bulletin of Primitive
Technology #1 & 2).
Reginald Laubin, in his book "American Indian Archery", described his
experiences in replicating Indian bows from osage orange wood and
sinew. He stated that as the sinew backing dried it tended to shrink
and pull the bow into a deeper and deeper recurved position and
contrary to the claims of Saxton Pope, it made the bow more powerful.
Laubin's book is full of practical experience but nothing very
quantitative.
Another article in "Scientific American" magazine on crossbows
(January, 1985) stated that sinew has a tensile strength of 28,000
pounds per square inch. This is useful information but it is only 1/3
of what is needed to characterize sinew. |
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My own experience with the construction of sinew-backed bows started
when I saw a backed bow made by a man living in Oakland. A beautiful
job . The replies to my questions were that it was deer sinew applied
with Elmer's Glue. Did it shoot well? I didn't ask. Several years later
I made a short flat bow out of Santa Lucia fir (initially misidentified
as California nutmeg), backed it with horse sinew applied with Elmer's
carpenter's glue. It was a lesson in the fact that even a knotty, poor
piece of wood will make an acceptable bow when backed with enough
sinew. My next attempt was a very close replica of a 36 inch Yurok bow
in the Wattis Hall of Man, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. This was a
yew wood plus sinew combination with very wide thin limbs. Some very
elementary mechanical engineering theory says that the only way you can
make an extremely short bow such as this and still shoot a reasonable
length arrow is to make the limbs wide and thin. Again I glued the
horse sinew on the back with Elmer's carpenter's glue. What a
disappointment! It looked very nice but didn't shoot worth a darn.
After shooting awhile and then unstringing the bow, I noticed that the
bow followed the string (bent towards the archer) but after being
unstrung a few hours it went back to its original shape. In general the
bow was "flabby". My last experiment was a plains Indian style bow,
made from a 48 inch black locust stave. This time I used hide glue to
bond the horse sinew to the back. This bow was dynamite, powerful and
fast. Did the hide glue make that much difference?
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