I called the division of Yellowstone National Park that stores there artifacts to see if I could exam any bows/arrows they might have. They replied that they had a recurve osage orange bow, 34 3/4 inch long. I thought this is going to be neat. I was expecting a short osage plains bow. To my surprise the bow is a Yew paddle bow from California that was donated to the Park about 100 years ago by a collector from Bozeman.The collector that donated the bow moved to Bozeman in the 1880's. The paperwork with the bow says it was acquired in Humboldt, CA. As far as I know this bow has been in storage since it was acquired and isn't in any books and has probably only been seen by a few people since it was acquired.
34 3/4 inches long, sinew backed yew. Handle is 1 1/4 inches wide and 1 9/16 inches wide mid limb. The the bow is more or less the same thickness throughout the bow at about 3/8". As you can see in the pictures the bow is painted on the back, but the belly was painted red at some point. Most of it is gone and it has an orange hue now. Some sapwood is visible on the edges of the bow.The string appears to have been painted red also, but it is very faint now. The red paint on the string may have been from handling the bow and then touching the string when it was in use or in storage.
The grip is wrapped with thick rawhide or thin leather and has seen a lot of use.
Unlike a lot of bows that I have seen in western museums, the workmanship is superb. There is not a tool mark anywhere on the bow and the sinew back looks better than most of the bows posted on the forum. Unlike most plains bows I have seen, the sinew seems like leg sinew instead of one thin course of backstrap sinew.
I have a few more pictures if anyone is looking for anything specific. There were two arrows with it that I am going to post in the arrows section.
Patrick
