Bows and Arrows

Forum's first correspondent from Canada, Mrs. Marian Schmidt of Dawson, asks if Indians used the bow and arrow for moose hunting prior to the time of the Russians and other newcomers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She reports that natives of her area suggest that the bow and arrow may be a recent introduction.

Perhaps the bow and arrow was reintroduced to this area only recently, however arrowheads and arrow shaft straighteners have been found in strata laid down long ago. Thus it is nearly certain that the bow and arrow has been in use in Canada and Alaska for thousands of years.

Indians along the Alaska-Canada border used, for moose and other big game hunting, a birch longbow (five to six feet) strung with either 3-ply twisted sinew or 2-ply twisted babiche (rawhide). Some tribes held the bow vertically, others horizontally. Arrowheads for big game were made of horn and copper, in lengths 3 to 7 inches. Both simple and compound arrows were used for large animals. The simply arrow had an arrowhead tightly bound to the shaft, whereas the compound arrow employed an arrowhead designed to fall off the shaft after penetration of the animal's hide.