VB,
As far as I can tell, the edge carved NA bows were peculiar to the tribes east of the Mississippi river from about Northern Fla north to Maine and Minnesota (Including sub-artic Canada) Aslo known as Eastern Woodland. A lot of the tribes referred to the "earliest" peoples as Annihinabii (original people or old people). There are a few known bows of theirs that are scalloped (both sides). With bows that are straight sided the scallops can be used for tillering the arc by regulating their depth into the bow. On the bows that are tapered (usually on side only) the scallops are decorational, because the stone sanding will "automatically" taper the limb's thickness toward the tips.
Eastern Woodland bows are also edge carved into ovals with squares, some with "saw teeth" and several other patterns. So I really do believe that the carving did a few things, 1. Identify a bow to a particular tribe or group. 2. Identify a bow to a particular individual. 3. Put strong "medicine" into the bow (for hunting or war). I dont believe that there is a "hard and fast" rule for why they were carved, but rather it could have been a combination of factors.
When I asked Jay about this or that, regarding bows, most of his explanations involved " what the bow owners wishes were". Which included grip wrapping, incised or painted designs, and add-on decorations (feathers and the like). He went on to say that the Ottawa were trained to make their own bows, but that some others had villiage bow makers.
Sorry for the long winded answer. I believe that each bow had particular design features that identified it as a certain tribes bow, and the rest of it was to the individual and involved their ancestors history, more so than a mechanical purpose. That is an opinion based on talking with some NA folks....so I might be all wet too, for what ever it's worth.
Rich
