Fig. 440. Bows of reindeer antlers. (National Museum, Washington. a, 34053; b, 34055.)
When the deer have scattered over the country they must be stalked, and, wherever the natives have no firearms, bows and arrows are used.
Fig. 441. Bow of antlers, with central part cut off straight, from Pelly Bay. (National Museum, Washington. 10270.)
They have two kinds of bows (pitiqse): a wooden one (Figs. 438 and 439) and another made of reindeer antlers (Figs. 440 and 441). Parry gives a very good description of the former (II, p. 510):
One of the best of their bows was made of a single piece of fir, four feet eight inches in length, flat on the inner side and rounded on the outer, being five inches in girth about the middle where, however, it is strengthened on the concave side, when strung, by a piece of bone ten inches long, firmly secured by tree-nails of the same material. At each end of the bow is a knob of bone, or sometimes of wood covered with leather, with a deep notch for the reception of the string. The only wood which they can procure, not possessing sufficient elasticity combined with strength, they ingeniously remedy the defect by securing to the back of the bow, and to the knobs at each end, a quantity of small lines, each composed of a plat or “sinnet” of three sinews. The number of lines thus reaching from end to end is generally about thirty; but besides these, several others are fastened with hitches round the bow, in pairs, commencing eight inches from one end, and again united at the same distance from the other, making the whole number of strings in the middle of the bow sometimes amount to sixty. These being put on with the bow somewhat bent the contrary way, produce a spring so strong as to require considerable force as well as knack in stringing it, and giving the requisite velocity to the arrow. The bow is completed by a woolding round the middle and a wedge or two here and there, driven in to tighten it.
Fig. 442. Arrows with bone heads. (National Museum, Washington. a, 34054; b, 10270.)