Cane methods questioned

[Hillbilly]

NClonghunter, I have never seen or heard of an old Cherokee arrow with a foreshaft myself, and I've seen quite a few, either in exhibits or in photos and historical drawings. All the ones of cane I've seen had the point directly fastened to the cane shaft. None of the traders or explorers that I've read who lived with or wrote about the Cherokee mention them using foreshafted arrows, either, even when they were describing their bows and arrows in detail, as Adair and Timberlake did. The Cherokee here in western NC still make cane arrows in the old style, no foreshafts. I agree that they make more sense for atlatl darts, I use them myself on darts, but not arrows. Several tribes used them on arrows, especially when they made arrows from fragile stuff like phragmites reed.

[Mechslasher]

i think there is a drawing in one of the ttbb's that have a some cherokee cane arrows with osage foreshafts.

[gutpile]

As for Cherokee using or not using foreshafts was a individual decision...most Kid arrows did not have foreshaft but hunting and war arrows were mostly foreshafted...I only foreshaft my cane..they DO NOT break after every shot either..some do some don't....my practice shaft has over 60 shots on it in to a foam target  ....still as good as the day I made it...foreshafting adds weight up front of your arrow...you WILL get better flight with a foreshafted cane arrow..also it allows a heavier spine shaft because that added weight will reduce your spine back to where you need it..it doesn't take long at all or any trouble to make a foreshaft IMO...it is much harder and more time consuming to make another arrow than a foreshaft....gut

[Hillbilly]

i think there is a drawing in one of the ttbb's that have a some cherokee cane arrows with osage foreshafts.

Chris, I think that was in the Al Herrin chapter, referring to the western Cherokee in the post-trail-of-tears era. If you look at arrows left from the Cherokee in their original home and culture, they had no foreshafts. The Cherokee that were forced to remove to Oklahoma picked up a lot of stuff from the other tribes they were forced to live with out there, and a lot of their unique culture sadly was lost during that time. Herrin even went so far as to say that he had never seen a two-fletched Cherokee arrow, when pretty much every old Cherokee arrow that still exists was traditionally fletched with the two-feather Eastern Woodlands fletch, which is still used by the Eastern Cherokee today. The Eastern Cherokee still living here where they have lived for hundreds or thousands of years are the descendants of the most traditional, conservative members of the tribe who refused to leave their homeland and go to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears. They hid out here in the mountains for many years to avoid removal until Col. Will Thomas took up their cause and got permission from the government for the remaining Cherokee to stay here in their homeland, and helped them get started buying up the land which is now the Qualla Boundary (Cherokee reservation.) They kept the traditional Cherokee culture and language alive, as most of them didn't speak English and were hard-core traditionalists. There are people on the Qualla Boundary today who still make bows, arrows, blowguns, pottery, and rivercane double-weave baskets the same way they have been made for centuries. The Western Band have been through so much that their culture has changed a good bit, unfortunately to the point that they almost seem like a different tribe from the Eastern Band.

[nclonghunter]

Hillbilly, again thanks for the Cherokee info..I have noticed the conflict of the fletching and fore shaft issues on several occasions. You make some good points and it makes sense to me how the confusion has developed. Do you know if the eastern traditional band would have used any steel trade points and what they would have looked like if they did? I am hoping to make a set of arrows with stone points but my add a couple steel ones also.

[Hillbilly]

I am sure that steel points were probably used as soon as they became available. I have seen several arrow points cut from brass trade kettles that were dug up during  archaeological digs at historic Cherokee townsites when Tellico lake was being built. The copper salts in the brass have preserved a couple inches of the foreward ends of the arrows on some of these, and they were sinewed directly into cane shafts. This confims the writing of Henry Timberlake, who lived with the Cherokee for awhile in the mid-1700s, and described their arrow making  process at the time as he observed it. He mentions them making points of brass, copper, bone, and garfish scales, and describes how they bound them directly into reed (cane) shafts with deer sinew.  James Adair describes them making points from flint, brass, deer antler, and turkey spurs. I have collected a bunch of source material over the years, there's a lot of stuff out there with very detailed descriptions of arrow and bow making written by early English, Spanish, and other explorers and traders. It's pretty interesting reading. There are very detailed descriptions of arrow-making methods, including using cane knives to cut fletching, using knives made from beaver teeth to cut nocks, making glue from hide, sinew, deer antler velvet, and fish, use of pitch and bear grease for arrow finishes, etc. Most of the Florida tribes seemed to have often used wooden foreshafts on cane arrows, as did some of the Creek tribes, and some tribes in eastern Virginia and NC. The Cherokee and Yuchi apparently pretty much never used them. When they were used, it was probably for the reasons Chris said-the foreshaft was designed to break or pull out, leaving the main shaft unharmed.

[George Tsoukalas]

I don't do cane. No cane in NH but lost of wild rose. I put the stiff side against the bow. Jawge