is the !kung one of the click and clack languages?
cluck,tuck,sac,click ,clac,pht,tahng.....i heard a south african exchange student talk in some of these dialects and it was just amazing.
im not sure in the spelling but its pretty close to what they sounded out to be!
plus he had some pics of the bushman with their bows and arrows,and spears...
alot of the arrows were pretty small cane like with just a thin leather flight,the shaft was split down the center and wraped from further comming apart and the tips were cold forged steel with barbed points with lots of nicks and scrathes to hold the poison.
the forged tip looked like a metal winged "wintu" point and they flared out greatly and was sharpened on both sides for it to just scratch the victim and the poison will do its work!
the shaft was used multipe times as the tip was a friction fit ,and was designed to fall off,they kept the rest in a hard bamboo type grass tube,for saftey.
the bow looked to me no longer than 36in long...if that.
and if theh archer drew the bow back with his right hand he canted the bow hard left and rested the arrow shaft atop his thumb and index finger shaped to form a "y",whilst holding the bow.
i remember the pics vividly.
he said that one of the reson for smaler bows is it just takes soo long for large trees to grow! as the animals keep the new buds and young trees clipped quite regulary,and the larger material was for shelter building, bridges.
