I got my information from a book selected essays by Gordon M Day. The first time the Penobscot warbow came to light was in 1901 and was sold by Chief Big Thunder to anthropologist Arthur Seton who was collecting and studying New England's native Americans. There appears to be no record before that.The Penobscot tribe had normal type bows and I don't think the warbow appears in their official website last time I looked. Chief Big Thunder was also known as Big Frank Lola A.K.A. Francis Loring and was said to be a white man who lived with the Penobscot most of his life. He travelled America with his sister selling baskets which the Penobscots are famous for plus their canoes. He signed up with P T Barnum's travelling wild west shows and was a showman who later made his living making and selling 'Indian Relics'. The original bow made by him was immediately copied and their were a few appearing after 1901. In my opinion a myth grew around it from then. I still love the bow, it's style and look even though I think it is only about 100 yrs old. There is a photo of Clara Paul in Penobscot dress holding a warbow dated 1853 which someone said disproved the 1901 date. I searched into it and accidently found the photographer was a Francis Loring. So he could have used the bow in wild west shows in 1853, or he could have lied about the date-maybe?
A quote from the book- 'Accounts given of him were ‘he was unscrupulous, a liar, and a rascal’ by the informants to the writer, ‘Fanny Eckstorm, who knew him, and his Penobscot tribesmen, were in full agreement with this assessment. There was no record of a dissenting opinion.’
