I traded in my' feathered headband ' for 'rabbit skin'
Let us all go back in history to a time when we as a species carried a spear on a daily basis . We are hunter gatherers . As hunter gatherers , we discovered that our spears cast better when the tail of the spear had something attached to it. It all happened one day , when I was waiting beside a deer trail . It was mid afternoon and I was sweating , having just climbed uphill through rock to get to the trail . To cool down quickly , I removed my feathered headband and tied it neatly on the tail of my spear and settled down to wait .
Only a few minutes had passed and much to my surprise , out steps two spike bucks from behind the corner of a rock wall . They are about 40 feet away but too far for my spear . They are walking slowly and browsing the small shrubs and heading straight to my position about 20 feet off to the side of the same trail , and I have the wind in my favor. 30 feet , just 10 more feet , and I will throw my spear . I flex my muscles and bring the spear back over my right shoulder and cast it at a spot on the lead buck as he walks broadside into my favorite range of 20 feet .
As the spear glides towards it's target I realize that my feathered headband is still attached to the tail of my spear but the spear found it's mark and the buck stumbled , lurched forward ,and collapsed on the trail. Wow! I thought , 'that was a good shot' . After field dressing the buck I tried throwing my spear again and again with the head band still attached , and much to my surprise , my throwing was better than ever before . I discussed this with the other hunters in camp that night and they all wanted to try the same thing . We sure went through a lot of feathered headbands for awhile there, until another hunter tried strips of rabbet skin wrapped on to the tail of the spear with back sinew and hide glue ….. and fletching was born .
As modern day archers we can only imagine that the arrow would have come after the spear . The arrow had the added advantage of experimentation by spear throwers . They learned that tying feathers and other materials on to the tail of the spear stabilized the side to side movement of the spear while the spear followed through on it's trajectory . Modern day arrows do not necessarily need feathers to stabilize their flight . Thin strips of rabbet skin works well in place of feathers and will spin the arrow to the left or to the right depending on how the rabbit skin is applied.
Cut the rabbit skin carefully so as not to remove any fur . With your finger apply hide glue to one end of the strip and clamp it on with a clico clamp . Saturate the arrow shaft with hide glue and pull the strip of rabbit skin and spirally wind it onto the arrow shaft being careful not to get any hide glue on the rabbit fur and clico clamp this end down as well. When the hide glue has dried then move to the next piece of rabbit skin .With hide glue and back sinew wrap the rabbet skin at each end and paint with acrylics
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Winston Mac Donald aka Broken Arrow
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