Traditional Archery Growing in China

[Stephen Selby]

Interest in traditional archery is growing apace in China. This weekend I took part in a festival held in Hangzhou, China where over 50 people took part. Several people are making good hornbows on a non-commercial basis, and there's a great supply of good arrows.

See this news report:

http://ori.hangzhou.com.cn/ornews/conte ... 295004.htm

[Bede]

It looks like a good time was had by all.

[jiao]

stephen, this picture is so cool

[Justin Ma]

That looked like a lot of fun. Wish I could have made it.

Is there an another event happening in Qinghai later in the month (around June 27)?

[Stephen Selby]

Is there an another event happening in Qinghai later in the month (around June 27)?

Yes there is! And the organizers have cordially invited all ATARN Members to join them in Xining, Qinghai. Many archers from other provinces and cities in China will also be attending.

Stephen

[serindia]

I discussed with Dr. LI Suyuan, who is the deputy president of Ili Bureau of Cultural Heritage. He is interested to collaborate and conserve the mounted martial arts, such as the mounted archery as the non-material cultuarel heritage in Ili Perfecture.

According to the state policy of ethnic, it is available to do it in Ili easily (or Kok Nur, or Tibet). However, in the Hinterland China, it is hardly to persuade the government to regard it as the non - material cultural heritage. I mean the traditional archery, but not the reconstruction of archery ware.

[bheggeseth]

Several people are making good hornbows on a non-commercial basis

How many bowyers are out there making horn/sinew bows worldwide? I am looking for everyone's best guess. I would count anyone that has made more than one successful bow. I am sure it is almost impossible to know for sure but maybe a guess could be calculated from how many copies of Adam's book has sold or maybe how many unique customers highlandhorn or Peter Cua has, etc. Looking at this forum there are 424 members that have at least posted once. All of these metrics have huge loop holes. I'm just curious...

[Stephen Selby]

Well, lots of people have made just few - especially in the early days, such Ted McEwen, Bert Grayson and the early researchers in Hungary. At the same time, there was some regular production in Mongolia. There was regular re-cycling of old bows in Northern Tibet; but no real manufacture to speak of. There has been a consistent, strong industry in Korea (South).

Early commercial manufacturers from the 1970-80s included Lukas Novotny, Jaap Koppedreyer, Csaba Grozer, David Gray. Ju Yuan Hao got back into the business in the 1990s and Zhang Yuhua got working in Taiwan. There were also hornbows being made in Italy.

On the 2000s, there has been a great expansion, with traditional horn bow making on a hobby basis being taken up in the USA, Turkey, China, Mongolia, Kirghizstan, EU and Russia.

I expect that the next wave will come from Iran, India and Pakistan.

Maybe since 1970, 200-300 people have made hornbows.

[Justin Ma]

I expect that the next wave will come from Iran, India and Pakistan.

I'm looking forward to the revival of those traditions. What's the status of traditional archery in those three places?

[WarBow]

http://www.youtube.com/user/okey1973#p/a

[Stephen Selby]

Glad you got that right. Wouldn't have liked to be walking outside the window behind otherwise...