mediterranean and thumb-draw on horseback?

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:13 pm

It is also a mystery to me what was the exact technique of the Indians. What I do know is that in pictures the plains Indians held the arrows diagonally to the bow in the bowhand with the points up. This is a common image.

Their contest was to see how many arrows could be kept in the air at one time. Five was a good average number, 7 is a record. A weak bow will not do this. Neighter will it cast an arrow completely through a bison, as was not uncommon.

If the arrows were held fletch up it would not be necessary to pull the arrow free of the hand, just feed the arrow down and draw in one motion. The nocks flared open widely and had good bulbous shape for pinch gripping with one or two fingers on the string for assistance.

Indians also hid on the side of the horse to avoid arrow fire and it was nonsensical to kill the horse since he was the great prize. Indians of Texas could fire a bow over the back of the horse while hanging off the side. -j-

Murat ?zveri · Post by **Murat ?zveri** » Fri Jun 13, 2008 4:21 pm

Hanging off the side of the horse is what cirit players do to protect themselves from thrown cirits. But shooting a bow in this position sounds unbelievable. At least, the cirit players have one hand on the saddle to hold theirselves.

With low-poundage bows I didn't mean sissy weights but as far as I know they were of 47-60# of draw weight (please correct me if I'm wrong), and they are not so heavy compared to Central Asian bows fired on horseback. And of course, even at the same poundage their arrows' energy should be also lower than that of Asian riders because of the shorter power stroke. Anyway, such (comparably) lower wegiht bows are capable to pass thru even such a monsterous animal if no bone is hit.

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Sat Jun 14, 2008 12:01 am

North American Indians who hunted bison on horseback generally used arrows with foreshafts, if the arrows were made from cane. Even when they used wooden arrows, they didn't draw them for their full length. It would not be unusual for more than 10 cm of the arrow to be out in front of the bow.

Judging from the accounts of buffalo hunting, they did not have to shoot many arrows to bring a buffalo down. Riding up close with an 80 pound bow and shooting accurately is a very effective way to kill a large animal with these provisos. Your horse ahs to be very well trained and you have to be very brave and skillful.

I have met at least one Native American who has done this and he was quite specific about the danger and the skill of man and horse is a talk he gave.

The games for keeping many arrows in the air at once were conducted on foot.

Taybugha mentioned shooting under a horse's neck while riding. One of my friends accomplished it while the horse was standing still, but I don't know of anyone doing it on a galloping horse recently. The draw was shortened and the angle only permitted close shots.

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:39 pm

I had a very senior Comanche friend whose uncle worked for a wild west show and demonstrated shooting bison from horseback. The bison was let into a field and the Comanche pursued with a "Buffalo pony", a bow and one arrow. He let the bison get to the front on the left side, aimed in back of the last rib shooting forward. When he released the arrow the horse would veer sharply right to avoid being gored. If the shot was true, to the lungs and possibly the heart, the buffalo would fall to his knees and be unable to get back up.

Indians would not trade a buffalo pony for anything. It has been said that if the target animal were just picked out the pony would do everything but shoot it!

Indian bows look less formidable than asiatic type bows, I think we must assume they were so. But there are no reproductions that I know which are as perfectly made as the originals.

Shooting cane arrows is prehistoric except for a very few groups. The bows could be drawn as far as one dared.

Catlin painted Comanches shooting off the side of a horse but others reported it also. He also painted an arrow shooting contest. -j-

MJuingong · Post by **MJuingong** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:45 am

Regarding the Plains Indian, note that we seem to be discussing buffalo hunting. Combat might require longer distances (and therefore longer draws).

As to strength of bow, remember, the Plains Indians didn't regularly have to penetrate metal armor.

Stephen Selby · Post by **Stephen Selby** » Wed Jul 09, 2008 2:45 am

Jack,

For hunting large prey, I had always imagined a broad head that would create a lot of bleeding. Did the first nations use them? All I have seen is very small stone heads.

S

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:29 am

I would like to point out that Am. indians tribes represent a wide spectrum of subsistence strategies; warfare techniques, culture and language.

About half of all plains arrows had their hardwood shafts sharpened like pencils. These are referred to as unarmed arrows. Hamm or Laubin retell a Texas Ranger holding a dying friend killed at long distance by an Apache unarmed arrow.

Most stone points called arrowheads are really dart points as their period of use lasted from app. 14, 000 Bc to about 1800 Ad whereas archery was from 0 AD to about 1900. Metal points were used almost exclusively from the introduction of metal (app 1492- 1700 AD). Therefore stone points are very early historic or prehistoric.

Metal points came in a seemingly endless variety of size and shape but were basically all with a pointed tip, unlike, say Mongol.

For a plains Indian, hunting bison was strikingly similar to warfare in technique and identical in equipment. -j-

jack farrell · Post by **jack farrell** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:57 am

In an account from Maximillian/Bodmer, a Mandan chief and a Cheyenne chief single eachother out as formidable opponents, They circle eachother counter clockwise on horseback at close range giving them both the advantage of a right handed archer. Their arrows manage to wound eachother only in the legs and shots to the horses. They dismount and fight hand to hand, the Cheyenne wounding the Mandan on the hand with a knife. The Mandan retaliates with a tomahawk to the head of the Cheyenne killing him.

The Mandan keeps the Cheyenne's scalp, clothes, weapons and horse. In the Mandan's belief, he keeps the Cheyenne's spirit and owns it for eternity.

At the time of the telling of the story the Mandan had 47 war exploits. Many have read this account. -j-

serindia · Post by **serindia** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 8:29 pm

Murat ?zveri wrote:Hello Angela,

It was Stephen Selby who first introduce me this technique when he was in Istanbul two years ago. On the way of reviving Turkish traditional archery we keep searching all available sources and last year we found a (picture of a) coin from Seljuks showing a mounted archer at full draw with two more arrows in the draw hand.

Although we're not sure whether the weaponary in Seljuk army was uniform, only a few different type of Turkic bows must have been used, including the ones with bulky-on-the back grips like the later Ottoman bows. Such a grip would not allow the archer to hold the arrows in he bow hand and of course a thumb release would make it easy and possible to load the bow that way.

After all, I'm still not sure how an archer who shoots with three fingers and hold the arrows in the bow hand would slip a broadhead-tipped arrow out of the palm. It seems only be possible with target or field points. Despite the fact that Native Americans have shot that way on buffalo hunts I find it quite difficult and unergonomic. It may be the "bird points" as the white Americans have named -the very narrow broadheads- which allowed them to load their bows from the bow hand. However, the depiction on this Seljuk coin is a hunting scene indicated by the arrow head (fork-like head for small game) and shows that broadheads can simply be shot when the arrows are held in the draw hand.

Here, you'll find an article of mine with the photograph of this coin.

http://www.turkishculture.org/pages.php ... ildID1=170

I have been shooting and teaching this technique for one year and we've tried that with broadhead tipped arrows as well. It works flawlessly. Since I'm not a rider I don't know how it feels on horseback but theoretically it's a good combination of thumb release which stabilize the arrow during hold-draw-release circle due to the pressure of index finger to the arrow.

You are right, because Mr. Selby is the Master of Sinology. The way to hold arrows by right drawing hand, is mentioned in "Yili Dayili", which is regarded as one of famous Classical Chinese ritual books. However, the background is not for mounted, but the ritual with the dinner, which is similiar with Japanese "Gong Dao".

He is great, and you too!

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:41 pm

The fact that there are illustrations of archers shooting from horseback with arrows in the drawing hand suggests that archers would take advantage of what they knew in one area of shooting and apply it to another. However, the lack of such illustrations in general suggest that either it was not thought artistically interesting or was not that common. It would be a mistake to think that artists were like modern war correspondents. They probably rarely saw military exercises. They were probably more likely to be witnesses to hunting than war.

Steppenreiter · Post by **Steppenreiter** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:45 pm

Bede wrote:The fact that there are illustrations of archers shooting from horseback with arrows in the drawing hand suggests that archers would take advantage of what they knew in one area of shooting and apply it to another. However, the lack of such illustrations in general suggest that either it was not thought artistically interesting or was not that common. It would be a mistake to think that artists were like modern war correspondents. They probably rarely saw military exercises. They were probably more likely to be witnesses to hunting than war.

I added two pictures sent by a friend who thinks this way of holding arrows while using mediterranean draw was common in the turqic times. I admit its a long period and many different tribes and peoples may be subsumed. He affirmes especially during Taybugha's times this holding of arrows was state of the art.
We all know the nice timurid horse archer and it looks a little bit that him also is holding extra arrows in his drawing hand.

I got two questions, first is this holding of extra arrows the way from the 9th - 13th century in the turqish military? Second did they where using generally thumb or mediteranean draw? Maybe an extra one, the holding of the arrows in the bow hand seems rather prehistoric (see: stone carvings in the sahara and some stone age african tribes - Sorry couldn't find the partian picture mentionned above.)

Thanks for help

Stephen Selby · Post by **Stephen Selby** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:04 am

As a matter of military tactics, I expect that the Chinese approach (developed under the influence of Turkish mercenaries in the Yuan period) would have been widely adopted. That is: you would not leave your hands so severely encumbered. The arrows should stay in the quiver and be drawn one-by-one.

Bede · Post by **Bede** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 5:49 am

I agree with Stephen. Once shorter open quivers came into use, the habit of holding arrows in the drawing hand died out with thumb ring users. The Seljuks still used the technique, but they were still familiar with closed quivers and that might have been why they kept the practice.

I have only seen people holding the arrows in the drawing hand using a Mediterranean release from ancient art. Specifically there are Egyptian bas-reliefs of infantry archers doing it and Assyrian chariot warriors too in the palace reliefs.

When drawing with a thumb ring, usually the Middle Eastern pictures show one arrow on the bow and two in the hand. Shooting arrows in groups of three is very widespread. In a charge, there probably wasn't time to shoot more before you had to wheel away.