Bow and arrow

Ancestors of American Indians who first arrived into the New World must have not used bows. To some extent it was substituted by missile boards with the help of which a hunter could strike a goal at a distance of 30-50 meters. It is possible that several millenniums BC bow was invented in the South-East of North America and in Amazonia independently, but there are no facts proving this. It is believed that bow came to America about five thousand years ago from the north-east of Siberia. It could have been brought by modern Eskimos. Gradually bow spread to the south, and in the end of the 1st millennium AD it reached the South-West of the United States. 

Of special degree of perfection were bows and arrows of the inhabitants of the south coast of Norton Bay on Alaska called Unaligmiut. They not only had special arrows for all types of land and sea animals – deer, wolves, river beavers, etc., but also for separate types of birds. The latter had blunt ends – such arrow brakes a bird’s wings and it falls down. To hunt deer larger arrows were used with ivory ends into which stone points were inserted. The pole was usually made of larch; bows were also made of larch or fir. To make bows more durable, ivory plates were usually attached to bends.

Arrow craftsman. USA. Late 19th cent.		Bow. USA. Russian America. The Tanayna by 1844		Bow. USA. Russian America. The Tanayna by 1844
Bow. USA. The Great Plaines. The Sioux-Dakota.		Arrow. USA. Montana. The Blackfoot.Late 19th cent.		Arrow. USA. Late 19th cent.