Old American Indian Arrows

[kleinpm]

I got a chance to examine a bow and some arrows in storage at Yellowstone National Park. I posted the bow in the bow section of the forum. These arrows came from the same collection but I don't know that they went with the bow.The bow came from California.

The arrows about both 27 3/4" long with metal points that are 2 3/4" long and 3/4" wide. I am always amazed at how thin the metal points of the era were. The shafts are shoot arrows but I don't think they are chokecherry, serviceberry or red osier. They might be rose, but I think they are a type of shoot from farther west that I am not familiar with. Both arrows are grooved, one arrow was painted red and is a faded orange now. The arrows have are tapered below the point for about 8 inches. Both shafts were only a shade over 1/4" in diameter at the thickest part. The paper work with the arrows said the fletching was dyed red, but it looks like natural fletching off of a bird that had some pink in their feathers.
The nocks are bulbous with sinew wrapping reinforcement. The arrowheads have traces of some sort of glue (not pitch) used to haft them to the shaft with sinew wrapping.
The Park has thousands of projectile points. They let me dig though one box, but these were there field grade points they show the public. They have lots of gem quality points including clovis that I didn't have time to look through.
Unlike the bow and arrows, the points are all from the local area. I was surprised that they were probably 70% chert because of the ready supply of obsidian at Obsidian Cliff and Bear Gulch. There is obsidian outcrops in about 15 other known places in the Park also.
One picture shows a green chert. As far as I know, this chert is only found in the Absaroka Mountains. Artifacts made from this green chert were usually resharpened until they were unusable, unlike the other sources of chert and obsidian which were discarded relatively quickly.

Patrick

[JW_Halverson]

Note the "tanto" point on the trade steel point  Very cool.

[Traxx]

that tonto tip caught my attention right off.

[kleinpm]

What's a tanto point?

[loefflerchuck]

Thanks for posting these. Looks like dyed eagle feathers to me

[stickbender]

     Klienpm;
     A tanto point is the style of chisel like point, used on Japanese, swords, and knives.  Instead of a rounded, or spear point, it was at an angle.  It was a very strong, and sharp point.



                                                                                Wayne

[Buck67]

Do the arrows only have two feathers as fletchings? 

I was talking with a member of the Ottawa tribe this weekend about the arrows used in the Great Lakes area and he said that all the old arrows he has ever seen were two-fletched.  I was wondering how common two-fletching was and whether our three-fletch was not that common.

[kleinpm]

Do the arrows only have two feathers as fletchings? 

I was talking with a member of the Ottawa tribe this weekend about the arrows used in the Great Lakes area and he said that all the old arrows he has ever seen were two-fletched.  I was wondering how common two-fletching was and whether our three-fletch was not that common.

These have three fletchings. Split and glued, tied both ends with sinew.

Patrick

[kleinpm]

     Klienpm;
     A tanto point is the style of chisel like point, used on Japanese, swords, and knives.  Instead of a rounded, or wedge point, it was at an angle.  It was a very strong, and sharp point.



                                                                                Wayne

Thanks. Learn something every day on this forum.

[loefflerchuck]

Do the arrows only have two feathers as fletchings? 

I was talking with a member of the Ottawa tribe this weekend about the arrows used in the Great Lakes area and he said that all the old arrows he has ever seen were two-fletched.  I was wondering how common two-fletching was and whether our three-fletch was not that common.

Most arrows from the northwest US were two feather fletch. Most arrows west of the mississippi are 3. This is a plains type arrow with a likely barrel hoop point. Arrows like this were found from the Mississippi to the Columbia plateau.

[Carson (CMB)]

It looks like the points are single bevel also.  Is that right?

Thanks for sharing!

[kleinpm]

It looks like the points are single bevel also.  Is that right?

Thanks for sharing!

No. They are not single bevel. The bevels were hard to pick up in some of the photos.

Patrick