Selknam or Ona bows

[cavernicola]

Hi to all the friends in PA

this is my first post in the forum, but I´ve been reading it many times. I ´m from the nortehrn part of Spain, so excuse me for my poor English, any way online dictionaries helps a lot with new words and so.

Many years ago  I started wuith makeing a bow with a yew branch and shooting, left it for about 15 years and now I started again with two board bows and some atempts wich ended with cracks.

I also was living in Chile for some years and read a lot about the Selknam or Onas, the aborigen people of Tierra del Fuego island. They were experts as Guanaco (a camelid) hunters, and some day I want to build Selknam bow. The bows they used were very powerful with average weights arround 110 and some bows with 136.

I leave you a draft of their bow and a link with text and photographs about their extict culture.

http://www.victory-cruises.com/ona_indian.html

The bows were made of Nothofagus spp., lengths betwen 1,34 to 1,70 m, handel about 3,3 to 4 cm, distance to the string in the handel area about 12 to 25 cm.


[attachment deleted by admin]

[Scowler]

Thanks for the information.  I have heard of the tribes of Tierra del fuego but i did not know that their bows were of such heavy poundage.  Welcome.

[medicinewheel]

Welcome!
- Do you have any of that wood on hand? Did you ever work with it before??

[cavernicola]

Hi, thanks for your wellcome

the Nothofagus species are the same family of beech (buche in german), they are also called suthern hemisphere beechs, but I dont know if the european beech wood is as hard as the southern.

[medicinewheel]

European beech has short fibers and is not considdered a bow wood!

[cavernicola]

Do you have some experience with beech wood?  I have recently made a beech wood board bow and it shoots very well, I have to say that it only has about 100 shoots. Does it means that it is going to loose power soon?

Here you can see the appearence of the southern beechs (Nothofagus sp.) wood. I have never work with it, but it is very appreciate for furniture making, and it is more dense than european beech ( I mean Fagus Sylvatica).

http://www.maderassoriano.com/maderas/Lenga.PNG

[medicinewheel]

Pretty much looks like steamed european beech; no I have not used it, but maybe you would post yours!?