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One of the things the Lakota elders
would say twenty years ago when I would
ask them about bows and bow wood was
that if a man came across an ash tree that
was struck by lightning, this was the ideal
tree to make a bow from. It had power.
To get back on point with the arrows,
these are definitely lightning grooves. My
brother-in-law Chris, and many of my
colleagues and peers agree that these
grooves also help to keep the shafts from
warping to a certain degree, that the
depressions made in them actually help
to compress the wood so that it is
“spined” in by those wavy lines and
therefore stronger, like when you burnish
wood. Burnishing smoothes and shines,
but it also compresses wood cells and
makes the wood harder, stronger, and less
likely to warp.
I enjoyed spending the entire day in
the Museum of St. Gallen, especially
examining the arrows and wondering who
owned them, where they had been and
what they had done—if only they could
talk! In a way, they do talk if we listen
closely and do enough research to
understand them. That is, for me, one of
the thrilling parts of being a perpetual
student of plains archery.
Of particular interest to me, besides
the arrows, were the original 1838
copperplate engravings by Swiss artist Karl
Bodmer, which I was able to view. Prince
Maximillian of Weid had hired the 23year-old
Swiss man to accompany him on
his expedition to America and paint tribes
while the Pince documented everyday life,
customs, ceremonies, and buffalo hunts.
The expedition took place in 1833 – 1834.
To think that Natives were living in an
aboriginal state at that time would be a
mistake, however, as tribes had had
European trade items such as guns, iron,
beads, brass, and cloth for a century
already. Like American artist and
ethnologist George Catlin who embarked
on his expedition a year earlier, Bodmer
and the Prince witnessed, documented
and painted many different tribes using
plains archery/horse archery for warfare,
for the hunt, and for games and gambling.
There was an odd combination on
permanent display, not in storage like the
arrows. It included a quiver, arrow, and
bow. The brain-tanned quiver had
beadwork only on the side facing out that
an observer could see, while the side
which would face the quiver wearer’s back
had no beadwork. Practically, such a
quiver would be lighter and the beadwork
would not get beaten, worn or rubbed off
during use. This is, however, atypical for
plains quivers. The blunt arrow, including
the fletchings, was painted with a
beautiful bright red vermillion. This is a
typical plains blunt arrow.
The bow, however, seemed out of place.
It appeared to be sinew backed but looked
more like a West Coast item. The wood
was possibly western juniper or red cedar
and the handle was sloppily wrapped with
a long hide strip. This is something I don’t
normally see on Northern Plains bows. The
tips of the limbs were not tapered but had
diamond-shaped knock ends. The paint
job seemed very ungraceful, and I didn’t
recognize the theme. This could have been
an item manufactured during the
reservation/agency era to be sold to tourists
and trading posts. There are Lakota arrows
Serrated tangs on trade points
gave a better grip when wrapping
sinew to secure them.
inside the quiver (upside down) with the
points sticking up, no doubt placed that
way in a much earlier period so museum
goers could see them.
To find these treasures in such
excellent condition, in a small corner of
Switzerland, not far from the border of
Austria, thousands and thousands of miles
away from the prairie on which I live and
where they were made a century and a half
ago was truly a remarkable thing.
Special thanks to the Gassman family,
Windcross Conservancy for Spanish
Mustangs (US & Switzerland), Achim
Schafer, Assistant Director of the Museum
of St. Gallen, and Nadine Zacharias in
charge of the Indianer Collection, and to
my favorite archery magazine of all time—
Primitive Archer!
Coming up in Part II of The Swiss
Connection: the Seggesser Hide, Plains
Horse Archery Clinic in Switzerland and a
visit to the 1st Annual Swiss Horse
Archery Festival in Baltenscheider!
www.PrimitiveArcher.com Volume 21 Issue 1 43