Hunting with the Bow and Arrow | Page 7

his great toe on the opposite side, or he bent the
wood backward on the base of the thumb. Squinting down its axis he
lined up the uneven contours one after the other and laid the shaft aside
until a series of five was completed. He made up arrows in lots of five
or ten, according to the requirements, his fingers being the measure.
The sticks thus straightened he ran back and forth between two grooved
pieces of sandstone or revolved them on his thigh while holding the
stones in his hand, until they were smooth and reduced to a diameter of
about five-sixteenths of an inch. Next they were cut into lengths of
approximately twenty-six inches. The larger end was now bound with a
buckskin thong and drilled out for the depth of an inch and a half to

receive the end of the foreshaft. He drilled this hole by fixing a long,
sharp bone in the ground between his great toes and revolved the
upright shaft between his palms on this fixed point, the buckskin
binding keeping the wood from splitting.
The foreshaft was made of heavier wood, frequently mountain
mahogany. It was the same diameter as the arrow, only tapering a trifle
toward the front end, and usually was about six inches long. This was
carefully shaped into a spindle at the larger end and set in the recently
drilled hole of the shaft, using glue or resin for this purpose. The joint
was bound with chewed sinew, set in glue.
The length of an arrow, over all, was estimated by Ishi in this manner.
He placed one end on the top of his breast-bone and held the other end
out in his extended left hand. Where it touched the tip of his forefinger
it was cut as the proper length. This was about thirty-two inches.
The rear end of his arrow was now notched to receive the bowstring.
He filed it with a bit of obsidian, or later on, with three hacksaw blades
bound together until he made a groove one-eighth of an inch wide by
three-eighths deep. The opposite end of the shaft was notched in a
similar way to receive the head. The direction of this latter cut was such
that when the arrow was on the bow the edge of the arrowhead was
perpendicular, for the fancied reason that in this position the arrow
when shot enters between the ribs of an animal more readily. He did
not seem to recognize that an arrow rotates.
At this stage he painted his shafts. The pigments used in the wilds were
red cinnabar, black pigment from the eye of trout, a green vegetable
dye from wild onions, and a blue obtained, he said, from the root of a
plant. These were mixed with the sap or resin of trees and applied with
a little stick or hairs from a fox's tail drawn through a quill.
His usual design was a series of alternating rings of green and black
starting two inches from the rear end and running four inches up the
shaft. Or he made small circular dots and snaky lines running down the
shaft for a similar distance. When with us he used dry colors mixed
with shellac, which he preferred to oil paints because they dried quicker.
The painted area, intended for the feathers, is called the shaftment and
not only helps in finding lost arrows, but identifies the owner. This
entire portion he usually smeared with thin glue or sizing.
A number of shafts having been similarly prepared, the Indian was

ready to feather them. A feather he called pu nee. In fledging arrows
Ishi used eagle, buzzard, hawk or flicker feathers. Owl feathers Indians
seem to avoid, thinking they bring bad luck. By preference he took
them from the wings, but did not hesitate to use tail feathers if reduced
to it. With us he used turkey pinions.
Grasping one between the heel of his two palms he carefully separated
the bristles at the tip of the feather with his fingers and pulled them
apart, splitting the quill its entire length. This is called stripping a
feather. Taking the wider half he firmly held one end on a rock with his
great toe, and the other end between the thumb and forefinger of his left
hand. With a piece of obsidian, or later on a knife blade, he scraped
away the pith until the rib was thin and flat.
Having prepared a sufficient number in this way he gathered them in
groups of three, all from similar wings, tied them with a bit of string
and dropped them in a vessel of water. When thoroughly wet and limp
they were ready for use.
While he chewed up a strand of sinew eight or