reflex deflex on Native American plains bows

[diliviu]

There could be more reasons, I'm thinking particular at the stability on release. When you have to make a sinew backed short bow from a wood that hasn't great compression flexibility you maybe want a low brace height. If you still want a tad of overall reflex, the best shape în terms of release smoothness and to avoid The unbracing of the bow at release (that could happen with clasic rd or recurve shape, overall reflex and really low brace) is reflex in handle and deflexed tips. Such a bow could still lose the string at release because of string slippering, only if pin nocks used.

[willie]

Traxx, thanks for the insights about the horse bow and the sinew also.

It's been a while since I rode a horse, and I doubt I will take up shooting from horseback should I ride again.

wishing to make functional replica of a traditional bow, I must reconsider the deflexed bow from further east that may be more suitable for shooting off my own two legs.

In the last two of your of your pictures the first way is correct. It would make a lovely shooting short bow.

Mike, other than the extra draw length that the deflexing allows, what can you see in this design that might make it a lovely shooter? would you be tempted to tweak the design any? One of the unknowns with looking at pics of musuem bows, is the fact that time and set may mean we are not always looking at what the bowyer had in mind.

[Oglala Bowyer]

Im not sure about other northern plains tribes but can vouch for the Lakota (Sioux) methods for this type of design. Almost all bows were reflexed off the handle. Time and set will undoubtably deflexed the tips. I’ve spent countless hours in museums and also examining my great great grandfathers bow.

[uwe]

Hello,
I have been making a few of these short plainsbows. My research has brought up that most Lakota bows had been made from whitewood.
Praerieash was one of the favourites.
I have never been there but what I`ve seen on TV or in books is, that on these wide Areas only small trees are growing. The choice of bowwood was and is not to be compared with those in the Woodlands. There the bows could be longer, but the game was different.
A horse was not the best choice to go hunting in the woods. The shooting distance was bigger as on the plains, where the hunter was riding next to the buffalo.
But even in the woods the distance was not as wide as some may expect. If you ask bowhunters of today 10 up to 20 is the maximum.
@ oglalla bowyer: Could you please tell me something more detailled About your great great grandfathers bow like dimensions, Wood, backing. I`m very interested about this. Is the bow still in your Family or as so many items of native culture a museums object? Can you date this bow?
Thank you very, very much for your answer!
Regards from North Germany Uwe

[Oglala Bowyer]

Uwe, the bow is from the late 1800s.   It is from a white wood tree of small diameter and is backed. Vague information I know, but I will not say anymore about It as many items from my people have been culturally appropriated for profit. I am not accusing you of anything but am only safe guarding my grandfathers bow and ceremonial items. My family still uses his crest in our beadwork today

[PatM]

Could you just confirm that it fits what is considered the general profile of a Plains bow and perhaps the length?

[JackCrafty]

"Not being able to examine bows in person, or been able to find any dimensional reproductions of the form, I am curious how they might have been tillered.  Since the bows are generally short, did they bend thru the handle?  and bend thru the entire limb?"

Yes and no. Most bend through the handle. Most bend through he entire limb. The tiller was never exact or the same, even with bows made by the same person. Sometimes the handle was stiff, sometimes flexible. Sometimes the tips were stiff, sometimes flexible. Sometimes the bows were shot green (the wood not completely dry) and sometimes the wood was seasoned for a year or more. Some bow makers made bows that would break easily, some made bows that would last for years. After many years of study and making reproductions, I've come to the conclusion that bow making was not a highly advanced skill in most areas. Most bows were tillered simply by "shooting them in" or shooting arrows out of them and scraping the belly until they "felt right".

One thing that's not mentioned is the quality of the wood.

"How much did they typically draw weight wise?   length wise?"

Typical draw weight was 40lbs at 20" for all areas. There is no typical length for bows unless you narrow down the geographical area. Even then, it's hard to say. Bows were typically made in proportion to a man's height but it also depended on the animal you were shooting. This includes shooting at other people for self defense or war.  Bows for shooting at people and small game at short ranges were short. Shooting at large animals was usually done with long bows and long arrows. Shooting bison from horseback was an exception, of course, but the evidence suggests that it took several arrows to take down a bison with a short bow. There are many examples of old bison remains with several arrowheads within the body cavity.

"What was the purpose of the deflex in the limbs?"

The purpose of the deflex in the limbs was to help prevent breakage. That's it. Pretty simple.

I would love to give you a list of the thousands of short descriptions from the many sources on the internet and elsewhere, but time does not allow. There are dozens of replica bows and their properties here on the forum. I would start there.

[JackCrafty]

As for the quality of the wood for bows, this has been a puzzle for me for many years. But I have come to realize that very good quality wood will yield a very nice shooting bow even though it might not look like it shoots well. I think the choice of wood was very important back in the day.

These days, we have the knowledge to make excellent bows from any type of wood. However, this knowledge was not always available back in the day. Even with thousands of years of trial and error, bow technology didn't seem to advance in the same way as other technologies. The traditional shape of the bow seemed to matter more than the shape that produced the best arrow flight. By using the best wood you could find, it was easy to preserve the traditional shape.

[PatM]

I've had the suspicion that the deflex in the limbs was largely to make the bows more easily "stringable"  by having the limbs trained as to how they were going to bend.  That makes a bow not likely to squirm away while you try to string it in a stressful situation.   

 You might have to compare the  performance of three short bows with those three profiles ( straight, reflexed, and gullwinged)  The gullwing might be the happy medium between the first two.

[bradsmith2010]

the deflexed bow might be less effected by long string time,,?

[Oglala Bowyer]

PatM PM sent

[bradsmith2010]

Pat you are right, I have found making the bows,, and shooting them through the chronograph and be quite revealing,,
the reflexed bow would probably turn into a gull wing,, if not sinew backed,,

[willie]

JackCrafty,
thanks for your observations. I know there are about as many different varieties in bows and styles as there are bowyers and shooters. Looking thru the book again, I see the longest bow from the plains is about 4 1/2 feet. The  horse bow style is well represented, typically shorter. Considering the different uses, Its hard to assume much about what lengths were typical from what was chosen to be included in the book.

In your experience from reviewing examples of longer bows, did you find many bows of greater length attributed to the plains areas? And did the longer examples keep the reflex/deflex form?


Oglala Bowyer,
thanks for sharing

[PatM]

It seems more likely that what was chosen for the book really represents what was actually used.  I doubt they cherry picked from examples to fit the notion that Plains bows tend to be very similar.

[JackCrafty]

Willie, I'm sure you saw the bows on page 185 of Volume 2.  The one on the left is 75-1/2" long and I think it's the longest one in the book. It looks very similar to eastern styles bows, yet it was found in the plains (Texas high plains). The reflex-deflex shape is very, very slight.

After a quick look though Volume 1, there is a Shawnee bow on page 65 that has deflexed tips and it 69-3/4" long, so the style did carry over to long bows and was not unknown in the east.

Now, the question might be, "Why do the shorter bows have more pronounced reflex-deflex?". I've heard many explanations but the best one, in my opinion, is the idea that bows from the latest migration from Asia had the pronounced reflex-deflex shape and were all sinew-backed bows initially. The sinew backing seems to have gotten thinner and sometimes absent altogether as the bow design spread further south and into the plains, but the basic traditional shape remained popular.

Sinew-backed styles from Asia were short and highly dependent on the sinew for bow performance -- with the majority of the bending occurring very close to the handle. As the technology spread and became diluted, it seems that the bending became less localized and was spread to the rest of the bow and even into the handle, with the longer bows barely showing any reflex-deflex.