Help identifying bow

[Dragoness]

Hi everybody. I'm fairly new to archery, and I found a bow at an antique store yesterday. They didn't even know what it was, and had it listed as a spear. They bought it at auction as part of a set of antique spears. It's one solid piece of bamboo, very dense and hard, and darker than I've seen before. It has no marking of any kind. I was trying to post this with pictures so I could get some feedback on what this actually is, but it didn't want to upload. I can add pictures later if anybody wants to take a look and see what they think.

[wizardgoat]

Post pics!

[Dragoness]

I found out the file size is too large. I'm going to try to make them smaller so I can upload them.

Ok so I cropped the first two. I think they"re small enough now. Working on the rest.

[Pat B]

640x480 is the size you want.

[Joec123able]

We need pics for sure

[Dragoness]

It is slightly curved toward one side, and from the nocks (shown in the third and fifth pictures) I believe that is the back. Is this correct? Is this really a reflexed bamboo self-bow?

Another concern I had is that there are vertical hair-line cracks in the other side. I believe it is the belly. (shown in the second picture) I am going to try to take a close up but the light isn't good and neither is my camera!

[Dragoness]

I just measured it. It is 1 1/2" wide and 55 1/2 " long.

[randman]

Looks like it's palm like the Philippino and Pacific Islander type bows. The ones I've seen are generally pretty long (72" approx) and roundish in section similar to South American bows but I've not seen nocks like that before......Looks like they would work pretty good with tie on and/or slip knot string as it would grip good and the taper would prevent the slip knot from sliding.....very interesting...

[Badger]

  It looks like black palm, I made one bow from black palm and it was decent wood.

[Dragoness]

I had wondered about that and read an interesting article about those here http://www.alaskabowhunting.com/PR/Ashby_Papua_New_Guinea_Bows_and_Arrows.pdf
As you can see the nock design is similar.

I was confused by the nodes that are visible on one side. (Picture 1) I wasn't sure if Palm had nodes like bamboo.

[loefflerchuck]

Yes black palm.

[Dragoness]

I'm so excited! I had a feeling this was something special but I didn't want to get my hopes up. I kept telling myself that I was probably letting my imagination run away with me and that it was probably something much more mundane! Plus I didn't want to come on here with all my theories and sound like a moron in front of all of these archery people if I was wrong.

[BarredOwl]

I can't say what the wood is , but I have a now like that.  Mine came from New Guinea.  My grandpa traded with some of the natives there during WWll.  Mine is still braced with what looks like a wide strip of bamboo or ratan as a strong and very intricately woven knots at the nocks.  I was watching a show about New Guinea on TV a whole back and the natives they were filming were carrying bows and arrows just like the one I have, intricately woven knots and all.

[Knoll]

The Wife says, "Never know what you're gonna find when ya walk through the door of antique store."  Good find!

[JW_Halverson]

I have one with the strip of bamboo for a string, too, Barred Owl.  I also have a set of arrows that came with it.  And here's the kicker: It is in the same hand hewn wooden box with the shipping address and the military address it was shipped from.  Here's the bummer:  It's a military address, does not list the country of origin.  The postmarks are smudged enough to not be able to read the date. 

The wood on mine is very similar to yours, Dragoness, but blacker.  I am tempted to string mine, but I pound my head on concrete until the temptation goes away. 

Last year I did take the arrows and the bow out to Reptile Gardens to have someone from their gift shop look at it.  I know, you are thinking tourist trap, and you are so wrong.  World's largest reptile collection as verified by Guinness Book of World Records AND the gift shop is run by one of the world's foremost collectors of aboriginal art from Papua New Guinea.  The arrows are a dead match for many arrows in his collection, both in style and materials.

I've seen several of these bows posted on here now, as well as had several people locally tell me about bows that they uncle/grandfather/etc has that look just like it.  I have to wonder of the people of PNG had a thriving cottage industry making and selling bows during WWII???