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Native American arrows?

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JW_Halverson:

--- Quote from: DC on December 28, 2017, 04:04:34 pm ---I was trying to think like a Native would have, they may not have known all that stuff. Longer feathers would straighten flight quicker but at the expense of cast. For hunting they may not have cared about cast.

--- End quote ---

And when hunting bison, they were on horseback, inside or alongside the herd, shooting at very close distance (sometimes measured in feet).

SixRabbit:
Ishi used hazel shoots for arrows. I've made 5 arrows from hazel. They were not matched by weight, spine, diameter or even perfectly matched by length. I was still able to shoot tight groups at 10 yards.

Pat B:
I agree SixRabbit. Most of my hardwood shoot and cane arrows are like yours. If they shoot well at hunting distance they go in my quiver.

Jim Davis:
In the 1960s, early '70s, arrows were sold as "for bows up to" some poundage--35, 45, 55 etc.

No one even used the term spine before the 1920s and then they didn't mean only stiffness. The term came to it's current meaning sometime after the mid 1930s, when Klopsteg and Hickman and their fellow experimenters were threshing out the concept.

Howard Hill is said to have shot a new batch of arrows to see which ones went where he wanted them. The ones that didn't, he broke so they wouldn't get mixed in with the good ones.

With no spine tester, Horace Ford set a record in the York round in 1857 that was not beaten until 1943! Spine, swine, wish his score was mine, to hark back to Charlotte's Web.

Black_Water:
 I know I'm a little late to reply but my 3 tribes are all within regions of discussion I've seen here, Klamath (Californian) Apsaalooké ( northern plains bordering the sioux) Chiricuaha Apache (Southwest sometimes southern plains). Through the older members of my family oral tradition has consistently shared the motif that you just find the arrow shaft that shoots best and when you find it you look for as many similar shafts on that same plant or shrub etc. and that there is no specific science to it. You sort of just go by instinct and what feels trustworthy. As for long fletching on plains style arrows I cant speak for every one, but the men on my grandfather's side (apsaalooké) just said that the fletching was long to account for the lost height and that you didn't want the fletching to be to tall because in the majority of cases the arrows are designed to pass through your prey and if the fletching was tall then it would likely break or get ruined. As for the southern style like the cherokees and others I havent had as much experience so I cant answer why they kept the fletching tall.

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