I believe that every Traditional Archer should know at least a little bit about archery history. It’s fascinating, and knowledge of the early archers and their equipment adds a useful dimension to a contemporary bowhunter’s appreciation of his sport.

The bow and arrow go back at least 25,000 years. It was about then that some inventive prehistoric hunter discovered that he could subdue an enemy or put meat on the table by shooting a pointed missile propelled by a taut length of sinew tied to a bent limb.

For centuries archers cut a groove in one end of the arrow to accept the bowstring, until the ancient Egyptians began using a version of our plastic arrow nock. Their arrow smiths fitted a slotted piece of carved bone on the rear end of an arrow made of a reed from the shores of the Nile River. The Persians too were noted bowmen and bowyers. To strengthen their weapons, the Persians used layers of animal horn and sinew as backing on their bows.

The Turks were so advanced in their archery technology that they were able to establish distanceshooting records that were never equaled. The Turks’ bows and their skill in shooting were one of the reasons for the failure of the Crusades in the 12th and 13th centuries. Thousands of Richard the Lion-Hearted’s men, equipped only with lances and swords for close combat, fell to Turkish Bowmen. Another group of fierce bowmen were Attila’s Huns. Because the Huns were mounted, they used short powerful bows that could be shot while riding a galloping horse. Sweeping through Europe in the middle of the Fifth Century, the Huns spread death and destruction wherever they went. Our modern Traditional Archery culture and much of our approach to shooting a bow go back to the great English Longbowmen. It’s interesting to note, however, that the modern laminated recurve bow with its flat limbs is more similar to the bows shot by early archers in the eastern Mediterranean.

The old English Longbow was about six feet long, did not have curved tips and was usually made of solid yew wood. Instead of being flat the limbs were oval or almost round in cross-section.

The shooting form used by archers today goes back to the time of England’s King Henry VIII. So important was archery militarily then that every able-bodied man was required by law to have a bow and a supply of arrows, and to practice with them regularly on the village green. The robust King Henry was an archery buff and quite an archer himself. He commissioned a scholar, who was also in the tutor of the future Queen Elizabeth I, to write a treatise setting forth the correct procedure for shooting a bow. The scholar was Sir Roger Ascham; the book was called “Toxophilus,” the Greek word for an archery enthusiast. It was the first instruction manual on archery form and in a general way is still the basis of the bow-shooting technique used by Traditional Archers today.

Ascham separated the shooting process into five steps: standing, nocking, drawing, holding, and releasing. Even after some 500 years, modern archery instructors still teach their students to master those five basic steps. In modern times two more elements have been added, aiming and follow-through, both of which are related to Ascham’s original five steps. Aiming is part of the holding step, and follow-through is the final act in the release. Not many archers in this new millennium year know that bows and arrows were proposed as a supplement to our arsenal in the Revolutionary War.

By that time the bow as a serious military weapon was dead, but canny Ben Franklin suggested to one of
George Washington’s generals that the Continental Army include archery gear in its armament. “I would add bows and arrows.” Franklin wrote. “These were good weapons not wisely laid aside.” Apparently his suggestion was not taken seriously; there’s no record of Colonial forces shooting at Redcoats with arrows.

There were no known archers in the Civil War engagements. The only instance of archery activity at that time was at a boys’ prep school, where the students were trained in the use of the bow as an emergency measure against marauding soldiers.

There was an important archery development just after the Civil War. Two Confederate veterans, Maurice and Will Thompson, lived off the land for two years in the wilds of the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia and with them was a former slave, Thomas Williams. Williams for some reason knew something about English-Style Archery and showed the two brothers the correct approach to shooting form.

The Thompson’s bagged a number of deer, two cougars, and a 300-pound black bear, plus squirrels, rabbits, quail, woodcock, turkeys, geese, bobcats, raccoons, turtles, and alligators. For smallgame the brother used straight-limb bows of 30 to 40 pound draw weight; on larger quarry their straight bows drew at 50 to 75 pounds. The key to the Thompson’s’ bow hunting success was that they shot almost daily and learned how to go unnoticed by wild animals. The two probably were the first white bowhunters to know the importance of wearing dark clothes to blend in with the cover, and to use ferns and brush concealment. Modern bowmen would do well to emulate their tactics.

Maurice wrote a book about his adventures, “The Witchery of Archery.” It became a best seller, and the exploits of the two brothers stimulated widespread interest in shooting the bow. In 1879 the National Archery Association was formed with Will Thompson as its first president. By the early 1900s, however, interest in archery had subsided and become more of a social recreation than an important competitive sport. Hunting big-game animals with a bow was as extinct as Hiawatha. Then, in 1911, began a remarkable series of incidents that boosted bow-hunting’s important position among outdoor sports.

In that year the last known primitive Indian archerhunter “surrendered” in California. The Indian, Ishi, was the lone survivor of the Yahi, or Yana, tribe. Billed as a living stone-age man, he was taken to the University of California at Berkeley, where anthropologists studied him. Dr. Saxon Pope, an instructor of surgery at the university’s medical school, was given the job of attending to Ishi’s health needs. Pope became fascinated by the Indian’s bow hunting prowess, and Ishi taught him how to make and use bows and arrows. The story is told in greater detail in Pope’s book, “Hunting with the Bow and Arrow,” first published in 1923. Today’s bowhunters can learn much from Pope’s book.

Another sportsman, Arthur Young, joined Pope. Hunting together and independently, the two friends bagged deer, grizzly bears, and other big game in Alaska and Africa. Their exploits popularized the sport of Traditional Bow hunting, as we know it today. Because they were the first modern white men to use the bow effectively in hunting, the Pope and Young Club was named in their memory. But some of the hunting methods used by Ishi, Pope’s Indian teacher, have not been improved upon to this day. Pope found that Ishi’s shooting was much sharper on game than on bull’s-eye targets.

He preferred short shots on small game and set a maximum of 32 yards for shots at deer. By pressing his mouth against his hand and blowing, Ishi could produce a call that lured into bow range cottontails, jackrabbits, bobcats, squirrels, coyotes, foxes, and lynx. And he could recognize the types of habitat each species prefers. He proved to Dr. Pope that he could tell by the tones of a squirrel’s bark whether the animal was scolding a man, a fox, a hawk, or a bobcat. Ishi’s sense of smell was so keen that he could actually scent deer, cougars, and foxes.

Most good modern bowhunters are fairly alert with their eyes and ears, but not many of us try to use our noses the way an animal does. However, I’ve known a few woodsmen who consistently could smell out foxes and deer. (My good friend Norm Blaker would be a good example of someone with this long forgotten ability). The lesson here seems to be that we should learn to use all of our senses while in the field.

From the moment he entered the woods Ishi was alert for game, anticipating that some animal was lurking behind every bush. He carefully scouted the terrain of the hunting area, noting its conformation, the location of thickets and woods and the feeding and bedding ground. He knew that deer are not so active in daylight hours during full-moon periods. After checking the prevailing wind direction, Ishi always hunted into the wind and positioned his blind with the wind in mind. With each slow step, Ishi looked twice. When he came to the top of a rise, he crawled to the crest and, with only the top of his head showing, thoroughly checked out the ground ahead for any movement or unusual color. In early morning or late afternoon he made a practice of keeping between the sun and the game that he was tracking. Ishi frequently preferred to hunt from a blind near a deer trail. One of his tricks was to place a stuffed buck’s head over his head like a cap, using the device to attract the curiosity of the deer. Because of the wide and increasing popularity of bow hunting today, this is one practice the modern bowhunter would be well advised to avoid.

It’s doubtful that bowhunters today would follow Ishi’s preparations for a hunt, although there’s something to be gained by considering them. It’s hard to imagine a hunting archer fasting before a hunt, yet that’s what Ishi did. One reason was that with no pre hunt victuals; his breath would not carry the scent of human food. Another reason for not eating was that he would not have an urge to empty his bowels and thus create an odor that would signal to nearby animals that a human being was lurking in their environment.

Before his hunt Ishi took a bath in a mountain stream, and then rubbed himself with aromatic leaves to mask his body scent. While hunting, Ishi wore only a loincloth. Because of his dark skin he wasn’t readily detected by game, and he didn’t have to worry about clothes interfering with his bowstring and hanging up on brush.

It’s not recommended that modern bowmen copy Ishi’s archery form. He used the Mongolian release in which the string is drawn by the curled thumb. It’s interesting to note that the Yanas apparently were one of the few Indian tribes to use this technique.

One passage in Saxon Pope’s book is strangely prophetic: “It is also futile to prophesize the future of the bow and arrow. As an implement of the chase, to us it seems to hold a place unique for fairness. And in the future development of the wild game problem, where apparently large game preserves and refuges will be the order of the day, the bow is a more fitting weapon with which to slay a beast than a gun or any more powerful agent that may be invented.” Of course, there are those who say that all hunting should cease, and that photography and nature study alone should be directed towards wildlife. Hopefully that day will never come. But at least no man can consistently decry hunting that eats meat, wears furs or leather, or uses any vestige of animal tissue, for he is party to animal killing, and killing more brutal and ignoble than that of the chase