native american bow tiller

[Josh B]

Rich never claimed that it was tillered proper or circular.  He specifically stated that he adjusted dimensions from the normal design to showcase the pattern of the skins he was gifted and then tillered the result as well as he could with the skewed dimensions.  This bow was not held up as an example to emulate or as an accurate reproduction of any NA bow.  He clearly stated that he didn't particularly care for the bell shaped tiller.  What little accuracy there was in the majority of the criticism was already pointed out by Rich himself before the two individuals proceeded to make donkeys of themselves.

Willie...as to your original question, I can't imagine that excessive bend in the handle was something that was purposely done.  They may not have had the internet like we do today, but they did have generation after generation of experience behind them.  I had the opportunity to handle an original Delaware bow that was a family heirloom.  When the lady brought it out to show me, she started to string it up.  It hadn't bent very far and I could clearly see it hinging at the handle and stopped her.  My first thought was why would it be tillered so poorly?  Upon closer inspection, I could clearly see that it was worn that way over long hard use.  The bow had a depression worn in the handle area that you could clearly see and feel.  I have to wonder if some of the surviving examples were worn the same way?  It could be a possible explanation for why some appear to bend too much in the handle.  Just speculation of course.  Josh

[adb]

Rich never claimed that it was tillered proper or circular.  He specifically stated that he adjusted dimensions from the normal design to showcase the pattern of the skins he was gifted and then tillered the result as well as he could with the skewed dimensions.  This bow was not held up as an example to emulate or as an accurate reproduction of any NA bow.  He clearly stated that he didn't particularly care for the bell shaped tiller.  What little accuracy there was in the majority of the criticism was already pointed out by Rich himself before the two individuals proceeded to make donkeys of themselves.

Isn't Rich able to speak for himself?

[willie]

josh

I cannot imagine that early bowyers wanted excessive bend in the center on purpose either. But it does seem that a circular tiller can also be had without having so much weight in the outer limb tips. I do not think that the advantages of narrow outer limbs were undiscovered, I think that there must have been better reasons to keep them almost the same width as the handle. I just don't know what that might of been. Most NA bows were narrowed in width some... just not very much. I do not know how heavy most of the arrows that were shot were. perhaps at the typical ggp, it just didn't make much of a difference.

maybe someone who shoots these type of bows can offer an observation or two.

willie

[Josh B]

I do hunt with these bows.  My dogwood arrows are about 550 gr with a stone point.  The wide tips seem a lot heavier than they actually are if the bow bends all the way to the tip.  I've seen really narrow tips with overlays that were just as heavy as the wide and thin tips on the bows in question.  That being said, the tips on my eastern woodland style bows are a little narrower than most originals.  I've made them both ways and the difference is negligible.  As far as those bows you see that have stiffer outer limbs and more bend through the middle, it could be a case of trying for more draw length from a short stave with less string angle(stack).  Just another possible explanation.   I haven't tried that approach.  I know there are a few on here that have though.  Josh

[Josh B]

Rich never claimed that it was tillered proper or circular.  He specifically stated that he adjusted dimensions from the normal design to showcase the pattern of the skins he was gifted and then tillered the result as well as he could with the skewed dimensions.  This bow was not held up as an example to emulate or as an accurate reproduction of any NA bow.  He clearly stated that he didn't particularly care for the bell shaped tiller.  What little accuracy there was in the majority of the criticism was already pointed out by Rich himself before the two individuals proceeded to make donkeys of themselves.

Isn't Rich able to speak for himself?

Yes he is and he did in the other thread.  Which is where the information came from.  However  since you chose to drag the picture of his bow to this thread to use it as your bad example, I thought it only fair to give the rest of the story as Paul Harvey used to say.  Otherwise, I wouldn't have mentioned it.  Josh

[PEARL DRUMS]

Id didn't read any other posts but the first post made by willie. My reply willie, tiller shape isn't up for debate. It is 100% dictated by the bows pre-braced shape, period. The era, the people or the wood species doesn't change anything and cant change anything. If I see an unbraced straight limbed bow with flat limbs at draw, its not evenly tillered. I dont care what the old pictures/books show.

[Sidmand]

I don't have a lot of bows under my belt but I plan to remedy that.  What I do have is a lot of information at my fingertips, and a little bit of common sense.  It would stand to reason (and possibly debate) that the native peoples would make bows for the purpose of hunting food and killing things.  Since the native peoples would not have had as much time as we do to sit around and surf the internet, and being that I don't believe there were many grocery stores on the prairies next to the large buffalo herds, the native folk probably spent a LOT of time afield hunting and gathering.  In my very humble opinion, I don't think that the native folks were as concerned about perfect tiller and aesthetics of what their tools/weapons looked like as much as they were concerned about "can this stick shoot this other stick into that critter over there so me and mine can eat it".  I'd wager that they were more intent on getting a functional weapon in their hand to use for a particular purpose.  While I will agree that early bowyers probably didn't want a sub-par weapon to take afield, I would also argue that early bowyers had a different perception of what was a sub-par weapon.  I also highly doubt that the Native Americans spent much time arguing over the finer details of stuff that we have the luxury of time and technology to argue over today.

What's my point?  My point is that to me, seems like there are a couple schools of thought on the subject of tiller.  Lots of folks fall into the school of "it has to be perfect, and if it's not perfect then it's a fail because your not getting everything you can out of your bow".  And, that's true in a lot of ways it seems, because your obviously not going to get all the performance you can out of your bow if it's not perfectly tillered and timed.  But, there is another school of thought it seems as well, which I find myself leaning towards.  This school states that "if the bow shoots well for YOU, and you are happy with it within your own abilities to shoot it accurately, and you feel that it will allow you to safely and effectively shoot your targets or kill your chosen game animal, then it is perfectly tillered for YOU".  Many of the bows that Pope tested possibly fall into that latter school of thought - perhaps they were tillered out and built for a guy who liked the bow to bend a lot through the handle, or perhaps they were done in a hurry a day or too prior to a big hunt just to get food on the table.  Perhaps those "poorly made and tillered bows" weren't made with the expectation that someone would come along later and critique them against the better made ones, or perhaps the owner had a totally different expectation and perception of what was perfect for them.  We have no real way of knowing.

[PEARL DRUMS]

Good points Sidman. If my life and families life depended on my bow? It would have a perfectly working tiller that had the least chance of letting me down or breaking at the wrong time, which is every minute of every day. Not to mention as hard as it was to carve a bow out for them, why not add some longevity to it by equalizing the bend?

Wrinkled siding still keeps the water off your house, but its ugly from the road.

[adams89]

If you want to see native bows drawn ( not particularly Cherokee) then look at Ishi or Eskimos, every bow I've seen so far even the 500 year old Mary Rose Warbow, had a very acceptable Tiller.
Of course they would not build stiff handled osage static recurve D/R, but  I guess they wanted to get a decent shooting bow which was fairly save to hunt with and which would live a long time.
If you add that and the hand tools, plus the hard work of getting a decent stave, plus the knowledge of glues etc. together, you will pretty much get a bent trough the handle D-bow with fairly wide noks and a good tiller.
On nearly every place on this planet where there is enough wood to make a log bow, there's pretty much the same design, wheter it's the amazon, afrika, medieval europe,north amerika, asia....... stiff handles on longbows only occur on areas where the right wood and a lower density ( more range of motion) can be found, like Germany ( stellmoor)
so this shows us only one thing in particular we are all pretty much equal.

[Sidmand]

Pearl Drums:  agreed, I understand your point completely.  That's why I would put you squarely in the "first" school of thought mentioned above, and I really mean no offense by that, it's just a way to show a difference.  If I had to guess I would say that folks in that first school of thought come from an engineering or maybe a mathematics background where things are expected and required to be "right or wrong".  That's a great thing, we need that sort of thinking.

Now, to counter your argument though, I would suggest that I don't think it was all that difficult to carve out a bow for native folk.  Mainly because I don't think they concerned themselves with making one to last forever and not fail.  If it were me and I had to feed my family with a bow, I'd make 3 or 4 bows, and take them all with me, and also be on the lookout for a gun.  And, I would be in the know on how to make a new bow, in the field, with minimal equipment, as fast as I could, that would get the job done.  This would lead me to believe that there was a "right enough, although not perfect" school of thought, which I fall squarely in the middle of myself.  I'm of the opinion that an "early bowyer" (to use the term created earlier) could probably throw together a functional weapon in a day or so if they really had to.  And I suspect they really had to, cause things happen and bows get broke and you'd have to be able to replace one on the fly so that you could catch back up with the herd.  I would surmise that the differences in design that we see today in our history books were born out of necessity or lack of time back then - not because the person didn't know any better, but because they DID know what the bow could do, and they choose specifically to do the least amount of work to create a working weapon that did the job.  That would lead to my assumption that the did the most practical thing at the time, and worried about the other stuff when they had time or reason to worry about it - say for ceremonial purposes or in the making of a weapon for a higher ranking warrior or chief.

[half eye]

Hey willie,
      I have some pics of my NA replicas, both full draw and braced. If you would like I can post some. Most museum examples only give the width and length and lack the complete limb dimensions to replicate the bow for approximate tiller shape. I tiller my NA styled bows to a tipt to tip even bend (circle) dont know if thats right or not.

My bad bow poster child is not a NA bow and neither is it's tiller. Like I said, be happy to post up some pics for your consideration.

I hunt with mine and have no problems at all with accuracy, power, or leathality. Something else to consider is the expected results; by that I mean Native hunters did not want complete pass through shots (either animals or people) in the former the head cuts a lot more if it's still inside and they could track really well, in the latter case a turtle claw or splinter head stays in so that the arrows leaves pieces in the wound upon withdrawl, to cause septicimia and were too dull to push through. The mindset was completely different so bear in mind while speculating that modern bowyers have not got the same perspective at all.

please let me know about the pics....and I'm sorry that I could not discuss the matter on the other thread.
rich

[PEARL DRUMS]

No math or engineering here man. Im just a German guy that doesn't approve of less than "perfect". Its just a mind set I grew up around within my family and it carries on today strong as ever. I cant count how many times my dad has said, "Do it right this time, or don't do it at all." And in my mind a used up bow limb is doing it right.

[adams89]

I see your point but I have to say, A good bow in a day with hand or stonetools is very hard to accomplish if it is not made from a sapling.
I thing the overall bow design is dominated by the wood ad materials at hand.
I mean Ötzi choosed yew for his bows ( plenty of other good woods around), he could have build an yew recurve, but he did not, the cherokee could have build shooter bows the same drawlenght or add recurves (easily with osage or locust) but they did not and I think they didn't because they had to rely on their equipment, for it to be precise and durable.
As for building the bows, If you listen to saxton pope:" Ishi loved his bow more than anything else in his possession. " and the decoration and rumors, sayings, paintings and historical evidences point out that they did like their bows and I also think they did their best to fit them to their needs, which includes a good tiller.
So I think they would have taken their time, they liked their bows and they would have done it over a longer period not in a day or two.

[smoke]

Half-Eye, you know vastly more about native bows than I ever will but I am skeptical about one statement you made: that NAs didn't want pass through shots.  I've bowhunted for 40 years and I'd take a pass through any day for lethality and recovery.  Just one white guy's experience . . .

[adb]

Me too. I'd rather have 2 holes leaking than one.