Documenting snakeskin backing

[JW_Halverson]

Has anyone seen documentation of original Native American bows with a snakeskin backing of ANY kind?  And if so, what collection is the bow in?

For that matter, any with rawhide backing?

Please don't take this as being confrontational or as me trying to argue that they don't exist.  I'm into historical re-enacting and my bow building habit is moving towards doing functional museum quality replicas...and that means I gotta provide documentation to the people looking at my stuff.  In the books I've read and the collections I have looked thru I have yet to see either rawhide or snakeskins on a bow back. 

[n2huntn]

Tbb vol3 page121 item c. Sinew backed bow covered with garter snake.
Jeff

[comebackshane]

This might be the same bow. In Encyclopedia of Native American Bows, Arrows and Quivers Vol 2 there is a Blackfoot bow, sinew backed with western garter snake skin.  It's in the Field Museum in Chicago.

[Pat B]

I believe there have been only a few snake skin backed bows found or donated over the years. I don't think it was a common practice but it was done. I don't remember seeing any rawhide backed bows but I don't doubt they used it. I've seen rawhide wraps used for decoration or handles. The primitive people knew the value and purposes of all raw materials and used them when needed as needed. If a splinter began to lift of Og's bow, I'd almost bet he would use a rawhide wrap or covering for the limbs...but no real documentation. 

[half eye]

JW,
    Dont know about the snakeskin thing, but the Innuit used rawhide backing....sort of. Several of their cable backed bows incorporated rawhide, the width of the limbs and nearly the length of the bow, and while it was not glued down it was securely fixed with the sinew or cordage cables and brace lines.....but it could of been to keep the bow and cables from rubbing on each other so dont know if that counts or not.
rich

[JW_Halverson]

Well, there's another reason to get the second volume of the Encyclopedia. 

I was also familiar with the Inuit cable backing and the use of rawhide on portions of their back, but that's not really the same as laying down a contigous rawhide backing the length of the limb.  If anyone else has documentation or has seen another example in a museum somewhere, please let me know.  I want to have as much evidence as I can gather.

Unfortunately, conjecturing about Og's bow will have to stay in just that file, pure conjecture.  The "thread counters" that I encounter only accept documentation and provenance. 

Meanwhile I shoot my sinew and prairie rattler backed osage with glee and a glimmer in my eye.

[Marc St Louis]

There is a bow in the Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec that is backed with Snakeskin.  I can't tell you which tribe the bow belonged to as I don't remember and I didn't take a picture of the plate describing the bow but I did take a picture of the bow.  The bow is the one on the left with the deflexed tips, I know it's hard to see but it does have a snakeskin backing



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[JW_Halverson]

Excellent!  Thank you Marc.  Now I can contact the curatorial staff and ask them for details.

Keep 'em coming folks!

[half eye]

JW,
     Page 9 in the book "North American Bows, Arrows, and Quivers (Otis Tufton Mason) paragraph 4.....Tufton quoting Baegert and Coville (1893) as follows......
     "The bow of the Chemehuevis (Shoshonean) is characteristic of the stock to which they belong, being of hardwood common in the region, elegantly backed with sinew and bound with shredded sinew, ornamented also at the ends by the skin or rattle of the Rattlesnake.* The type belongs to the stock everywhere."
       * the footnote reads: Whipple, etc., Pac.R.R.Rep., vol. III, p. 32, pl.41, bow and quiver.
rich
PS: Tufton Mason was with the Smithsonian Institution in the late 1800's

[youngbowyer33]

Marc when was that photo taken? i may try to go see it sometime, maybe take a few pics

[Marc St Louis]

I took that picture about 4 years ago

[youngbowyer33]

ohhh jee, i think they will still have it, but maybe not

[JW_Halverson]

Thanks, half eye.  I'm not familiar with that book, so I'll have to go shopping for a copy.