Author Topic: South Pacific Islands bows?  (Read 1316 times)

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Offline AH

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South Pacific Islands bows?
« on: March 17, 2013, 02:25:52 am »
I have a friend from Tonga who told me that he had often heard of the "famous fijian bows".  So i did some research and found that bows were often used in melanesia but rarely in polynesia, except in the case of tonga, but really most information of pacific island bows on the internet is sketchy. I have found that they would use palm, mangrove, and mulberry, and usually they are in the typical "D" bow style, a bit like hadzabe bows.  I found this quote: "*Due to the difficulty I am having in finding good English-Fijian translators i will only translate when i can, please forgive me.
It is hard to find a source describing just the bows of the Fijian. Even Thomas Williams doesn’t go into too much detail. Finally after searching their culture group, Melanesian, I got this from this most excellent source. (which I highly recommend for those doing matches with lots of bows). “The Fijian self bows are made from mangrove and feature elegantly curved nocks. The bow is 170.2 cm long, 2.6 cm wide and 1.9 cm thick at mid limb.” Converted into standard the bow is 5 feet long, 1 inch wide and 0.74 inches thick. Much to my great disappointment I have been unable to get an exact Fiji bow picture, however what you see above is a Papua New Guinea which is in the same family as the Fiji one and would be quite similar."
Does anyone have any more knowledge on these pacific island bows? I want to attempt to make one :).