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This is an excerpt from "Some “How
Good of Archers Were Native Americans? Part Three:".
Read the complete column in the Central
States Archaeological Societies 2024
July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March
2025
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his artist rendition of two natives harvesting
elk from behind a Juniper tree is based on the evidence of many
points
found in Pinion Juniper Woodlands. |
As shown in Part Two (see CSAJ April 2024), many types of animals
were the target of the native bow. Accounts such as the following provide
further written evidence of animals taken with bows. William Hamilton,
in his 1905 book, My Sixty Years on the Plains Trapping, Trading and
Indian Fighting, supplies detail not only to the species but also shot
placement on the animal. The Cheyenne harvested buffalo with the bow
and focused on a part of the anatomy any modern hunter would agree
with: “One arrow was sufficient to bring the buffalo to its knees.
They shot behind the shoulder, sending the arrow deep enough to strike
the lungs.”(10) A lung shot was smart as this avoided the shoulder
and was a larger target than the heart, a certain death blow even if
not an instant death (lung shots can take an hour or more for the animal
to expire if no more arrows are delivered). Explorer Peter Ogden backs
up the evidence that large game was the intended target regarding natives
in the Northwest: “The bow and arrow supplied the means of procuring
large animals…”(1).
Harmonious with other diagnostics from the soil, textual testimony
points to even more ancient contexts where the bow and arrow were
used to hunt wild game small and large. As noted by Peter Ogden,
bow use on “large animals” implies the same into distant
archaeological timeframes. In his firsthand account Elvas, of the
De Soto expedition, writes of eastern tribes 300 years earlier, “whether
they are fleeing or attacking, or whether they are fighting or taking
recreation in hunting... the Indians have found also that they can
obtain a better effect with this weapon [bow] either at a distance
or near at hand” (17) (See Fig. 41).
Bow Tactics
When we think of native bow tactics, we picture isolated instances
of hunting or sniping through the woods, not unlike Pattie reporting
in 1825 that “...the Commanches were in town, killing the
people...[by] skulking around, dealing out death in darkness and
silence with their arrows”(27). Or when Coronado’s
Maestro de Campo was killed in the 1500s as “he carelessly
entered a brushy place in pursuit of hostile Indians [and] was
struck in the eye by an arrow which pierced his brain.” However,
natives found another tactic that worked well and repelled enemies
en masse. When shooting efforts were coordinated beyond isolated
casualties, the shower method would increase carnage through irritation,
distraction and intimidation on large people groups. Instead of
precise, one-off sniper-like attacks, the blitz-kreig shower method
can kill by shear numbers of flying arrows, creating panic and
the desperation of nowhere to go. This method is documented among
ancient empires such as the Egyptians, Assyrians and barbaric tribes
building siege works (See Fig. 42).
Some of the earliest patrons of the shower method were recorded
in Mexico. Bernal Diaz, a soldier in the De Cordoba and Cortez campaigns,
said the shower barrage of arrows was a frequent occurrence among
an ordered native populace. In 1517, Yucatan Mayans launched a volley
that wreaked havoc before the Spaniards knew what hit them: “While
we were still debating, the dawn broke, and we saw we were outnumbered
two hundred to one...After forming up in squadrons and surrounding
us on all sides, they assailed us with such a shower of arrows and
darts...that more than eighty of our soldiers were wounded”(23).
Several decades later in 1541, Coronado assistant Castaneda also
noted that the heavily mounted Spanish expedition encountered natives
who were remarkably tall and lived in “huts of long straw built
in underground like caves” near the Firebrand River (Texas’ Colorado
River). When “these natives were planning to attack our men
and…looking for an opportune occasion they came in a warlike
mood, shooting showers of arrows”(97). Explorer Ross Cox says
that natives centuries later in the northwest also employed this
manner: “About ten minutes afterward a shower of arrows was
discharged from the same place, followed by loud yells; but some
passed over our heads, while others were intercepted by the canoes,
in which they remained fast”(85). Cox later affirmed the tactic
when he said “...a shower of arrows was discharged at us...”(139)
(See Fig. 43).
James Ohio Pattie noticed the peculiar timing of the shower method
among the Arickarees who coordinated the the weather. When the sky
began to shower rain, the air was flooded with arrows: “About
midnight it commenced raining...for shortly after it began, the Indians
attacked our encampment, firing a shower of arrows upon us.”(18)
He also reports that somewhere near Taos or Santa Fe a party of Indians “encamped
there ahead of us climbing the mountains, the men in advance of the
women, and all fleeing at the top of their speed. As soon as they
saw us, they turned, and let fly a few arrows at us, one of which
would have dispatched my companion, had he not been infinitely dextrous
at dodging”(35). Because of relative tensions on primitive
bows, arrows shot on an arc would...
Read the complete column in the Central States Archaeological Societies 2024
July Journal which can be purchased on-line after March 2025 |
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