Native Cultural Arts: Comanche Bow and Arrows

my name is willie pika i'm from the comanche nation i'm a traditional born arrow maker for the tribe this is something i've learned from as i was a youth seven eight years old just trying to keep up with my traditions at the time when i thought about it and wanted had the interest and wanted to do it not many of our people were still making bowls and arrows i had to search out ask my grandparents who made bows who made arrows who could help me because i wanted to learn the traditional ways of doing these things and it was hard even the guys that knew how kind of didn't make them anymore so today we're going to start out with just a quick demonstration on the bose narrows in general how you would shoot them later on we'll get into other parts of uh how to cut the wood how to cure it and how to finish off the whole product give you a basic idea of steps that we go through um so that's what we do today today uh we have a bulldark bow uh you can tell it's real dark it's called old sage orange when you first cut the wood it's a real orange kind of wood and orange looking but as you put oil in it and years this one's close to 20 years old it gets darker and it stays stays that way if you make it just right your additional arrows that the comanches would use made out of uh dogwood shafts this one is uh in the style of our comanche people longer feathers at the end shorter usually plumes of different colors and they would paint them and decorate them based on you know who's making them so they would be able to tell oh yeah but by the colors in the style sozo made this saw pity made this uh poco made these that would be but arrows are anywhere from probably 25 to 28 inches long real short and the bows are shorter too bulls were anywhere from i would say 44 inches to maybe 49 50 inches long the reason behind them they had to be shorter because we're horse people we traveled we hunted we ward behind the boat but you had to be have something that is short maneuverable from the back of a horse so a short bull really worked their stories of our people as they were you know hunting or even at war they could shoot an arrow from any part of the horse under the belly hang it on with raw hide pieces under the neck even behind the tail that would be able because the bow was so short and maneuverable that it worked out and one interesting thing that i found out too if you look at the end of the bowl it's only knocked on one side because when you string it up it was easier just to pop it in on one side then to pop it in on both sides so the bottom would be secure but the top would have one knock so you just pull it up and it popped in the string is ready to go so that would that would be the process to use and uh a lot of times i would hold my arrows into my bowl and even some of the elves would tell me comanches held them with the point side up they said the cows when they were riding their horse they always had the arrows like this with a feather side up so at the distance they could tell when there were cows or comanches all my elders say you know hold it like this that's comanche style just little bits and pieces on tradition of them but it's easier to make like i said uh comanche bowls are real short easy remove uh to be able to shoot from any part of the horse that you needed and you have to think about it our bowls are made short they're instinct shooting just pull back let it go it's not traditional uh european style where you got to pull it all the way back to your cheek aim and let it go that's not our bowls ours are short instinct style the other side whenever you see real comanche people shooting they don't stand up straight and shoot like this they're was crouching down and the old ones told me that crouching down you minimize your target so you try to make yourself smaller so uh standing up high you're a bigger target but if you're crouching down it's it's it's a smaller target it's just it's a piece they keep telling me but it's easy like i said it's interesting shooting that our people would do just point and shoot be a quick way to do it when i'm looking for dogwood what i try to find is if you look at some of the the trees the limbs at the top are red so i see kind of a red haze in them so usually then i see that then i'll stop check it out then you gotta look through uh into the bushes and you'll see the straight sticks one of the reason i like to cut them in this time of year is uh i like to cut them with sap is down so i do it in december through january early february because if you cut it after then you can see that the limbs already starting to bud out just a little bit that means it's going to bring the sap up so then it it'll saturate the wood where it starts to get real green and then it has too much sap in it that it's harder to cure it takes longer and as i cut them down i'll just take the limbs off and get an idea of uh where i'm gonna be able to make the arrow right quick i see like i'd like to start here because you get here you see a little bend in it but that still would work i'm gonna cut it longer and then i'll uh later on size it to make sure that this can make a a nice arrow as straight as it is just coming out of the creek and this uh just the idea of the arrow bag that i make it's one style that i made and i make several different ones but we're going to go through the process of making that and we're going to probably coming from the creek we've collected these already these are dogwood shaft that we come to creek they're going to take this and eventually we're going to come up with this we cut them one of the things that you have to do first before we even get started once you cut them then you have to take the bark off okay and that's just the process you have to do if you don't take the bark off and you let it go uh the bark dries on and it is hard to get off later so what we do is just try to take the bark off and get it down to the wood itself you could see where there's a green tint you want to take that off and that part of the bark so i'll just keep shaving it off until we get to that as you go you'll see these little nubs where the lids were you want to nick those off and take those off and just the process you got to do and you get them cleaned eventually you keep working them down and you have an arrow shaft that is ready to be put together of course you gotta take all the bark off all the different ones that we have and then what after i do that i cut up the link and i keep straightening them then i have to bundle them together usually i do a bundle of seven that way you have one in the center one in the center then it all kind of fall together on the side it just kind of you know lays perfect so as you bundle them together just put them together and i wrap it and tie it wrap it and tie it and then i just leave them then a week or so later i'll take them out and i'll start shaping them down again getting the imperfections off so let me get back kind of pause it and you can come back in like i said before once you tie the feather down what you do is you have to at the tail end just bend it over and then just tie it down like this and then once you tie it and wrap it and then you would pull it down and over and then put it to the front that tightens it up i'll do one right quick show you the process it's just a lengthy process but it's the best process because a lot of people you know didn't have glue so then you would have it tied down and what you do like i said what you do is pull it forward then pull it down to the front and then you would wrap it again in the front and that pulls it down it gets a nice tight comanches are one of the few tribes that even do this a lot of people uh a lot of tribes they do they're different they tie them down in the back and it just it's good but as it pulls out i mean you can't pull them pull them tight enough to get it down to where you want them once you do that and get it done usually with the feathers i knock them in front for the point to come in now comanches use a lot of different points um the progression for arrow points was first they came in with bone and any kind of bone just to make a sharp point and you have an arrow coming out of the bowl only you've got that point it doesn't matter anything can be used but the a bone pick they pick up a bone and you know be able to rub it on the rock and shape it the way they want a ball point was good but it breaks okay so then as as time goes by they went from bone they went to stone stone you could flint nap it and flake them all and make a nice point they would go to that as europeans come through the settlers then he went to uh they would say they would make the arrow point out of a wackon wheel the wagon wheel that they had they would break off a piece of that metal that goes around the wheel and pound it down and shape an arrow point that's what they used to use and then as the europeans came coming through they found that you know that they wanted something lighter because the wider wheel arrow points would shoot him and anytime you have an arrow and you've got a heavy front it goes so far and starts it's called dipping it'll go out and start dipping so they wanted a lighter point they found out that the europeans had these little hand saws the old hand saws that you used to have that's what this comes from what they do is take a cold chisel and chisel them down to the shape that you want they break them off they can sharpen them you can sharpen these like broadheads you buy the sports porch store you can put a razor edge on these things because of the carpet and the steel so that's what i would do is uh make a bunch of those then i would cut the knockout you got to make sure the knock is straight because you want it to you don't want your arrow bending you know because if you get it it'll turn the track but you gotta have your streams you can't up it down so knock it then you wrap it and put your arrow together complete the arrow like this you

Channel: TulsaLibrary

Views: 411,255

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Id: 1G1Vo9GV2H8

Length: 13min 49sec (829 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 01 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Free_Return_2358]

Does he have a YouTube channel?

[u/beans4cashonline]

I just watched this a week ago and it renewed my interest in archery. Thank you and thank him. The seed library at TCCL is also an awesome resource.

[u/nadandocomgolfinhos]

It’s so important to preserve culture. I hope he does start a YouTube channel. What an incredible resource!

[u/mycatisanorange]

That’s very cool!

[u/AltseWait]

Thank your dad for us. This is very informational.

[u/dhawkins331]

Thanks to your dad for sharing his knowledge! This was neat to watch. I showed the video to my husband, who enjoys archery hunting. :)

[u/dhawkins331]

Thanks to your dad for sharing his knowledge! This was neat to watch. I showed the video to my husband, who enjoys archery hunting. :)