This weapon is known in Europe from the circumstance of a child’s toy bearing the first of these names. It is a long tube from which a little arrow is expelled by the breath, resembling in size and appearance a knitting-needle, and provided at its unpointed end with a ball of elderpith or tow, which serves as wadding. The range of this arm is from 75 to 100 feet. The sumpitan may be considered as a weapon indirectly set in motion by muscular force, for the arrow is expelled from it as the result of contractions of the thoracic muscles, but it is better to regard it as the prototype of the fire-arm, as the arrow may be discharged by utilising the expansion of gas, and thus transformed into a fire-arm. As to true fire-arms, known to the Chinese and peoples of antiquity, they have only made real headway in Europe, and that from the fifteenth century.
But if the missile weapons in the two categories which I have just enumerated are little known to uncivilised peoples (setting aside, of course, the fire-arms imported by civilised man), those of the third category, in which advantage is taken of the muscular force of an elastic body (the bow), is universally employed by them, as it was formerly in Europe. The most perfected arm of this kind was the complicated cross-bow of our ancestors and the Chinese.
The Bow and Arrow.[304]—The origin of the bow is unknown; certain authors consider that a flexible twig arranged as a snare would give the first idea of it. This may be so, for among the Maoris of New Zealand there used to be a hand-weapon which bore a striking resemblance to this snare: a whip with a flexible handle, by means of which an arrow held in the hand was shot off.[305] Among several Eurasian peoples there is a toy which reproduces this weapon as a survival; among the Votiaks it even bears the name of n’el, which means arrow in several Finnish languages.[306] However that may be, we may divide the infinite variety of bows into two groups: the plain bow—that is to say, the bow formed of a single piece of wood, and the composite bow, made of various materials—wood, horn, ivory, sinews, leather, etc., glued solidly together.
The least complicated type of the composite bow is that of the eastern Eskimo, of wood and horn, or of wood and bone, the weapon being strengthened by a cord of sinews applied along the “back” or the outer side (opposed to the “belly,” inner side, which is nearest the archer when he bends the bow).[307]
Among simple bows we must mention that of the Melanesians, having a groove sometimes on the outer, sometimes on the inner side; that of the Monbuttus, provided with a “grip”; lastly, that of the Andamanese, in the form of an S, resembling in its general appearance on the one hand certain bows of the Eskimo, and on the other, those of certain Bantu Negroes of Eastern Africa (according to Foa).[308]
FIG. 77.—Different methods of arrow release.
Top, primitive release.
Middle, Mongolian release.
Bottom, Mediterranean release.
(After E. Morse.)
Arrows cut wholly from one piece of wood are rare. Most of them are composed of three distinct parts fitted together: head, shaft, and feather. The head is of hard wood (sometimes hardened in the fire) or of human bone among the Melanesians; of chipped stone among certain American Indians and our quaternary ancestors; of bone, wood, and iron among various Siberian peoples; of iron among most of the other peoples. The form of the head varies infinitely; but the varieties turn around two types: sagittal (as a classic or conventional arrow) and lanceolate (as a laurel leaf). There are likewise arrow-heads with transverse or hollowed edges in the form of the fruit of the maple (Turks and Tunguses of Siberia, Negroes of the Congo). Lastly, there are arrows of which the head has nothing pointed about it, for it is shaped like a ball, an olive or cone upside down, etc. These arrows are used by several Siberian peoples (Ostiaks, Tunguses), by Negroes of the Congo, Indians of Western Brazil, etc., as a blunt weapon for killing animals whose fur, being valuable, might be spoilt by the blood flowing from a wound. The Buriats of old used whistling arrows, probably to frighten their enemies, etc. The feather is wanting in several forms of Melanesian arrows very complicated as regards the head, in certain African arrows, etc. Among the Monbuttus it consists of the hair of animals; everywhere else, however, of birds’ feathers.