Ethnographic Arms & Armour - Kalahari bow, quiver and staff.

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Kalahari bow, quiver and staff.

I got this set at a car boot sale this morning. The bow is only 106cm long. The arrows 52cm long. The tips are about 1cm. The arrows are made in three parts, wood with a bone insert, metal tip and haft bound on to the piece of bone. The quiver is very cleverly made from a tube of bark, there is no seem. How do they get the wood out just leaving a tube of bark. The quiver also contains a fire drill? A stick holding a lump of gum and some black stuff which may be poison, I am not going to fiddle with it just to be on the safe side. If the arrows were fletched? nothing remains now or any materials for doing so. The bow is really quite strong with some sinew wrapped around each end but the string is hand woven cordage. This set may look as if it was made in toy town or by some kids in the woods but on the contrary it is deadly serious stuff. The arrows tips may be tiny but would deliever an unpleasant death.

I think the staff is fantastic 117cm long the knob part is approx 10cm x 8cm. This would be a big stick for Kalahari people. Would make a great two handed fighting stick.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ppy/SAN007.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ppy/SAN002.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ppy/SAN006.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ppy/SAN004.jpg

Tim

Nice stuff! The club is Swazi and a nice example.

Lew

You must be very proud of it to post three times!! :D :) :D :)

[edit] Make that 4 times <VBSEG> :eek:

I have no idea how I made four posts :o :) . Perhaps one of the mod could remove the unwanted ones.
I have been googling arrow poisons. The black stuff could be a plant based poison paste or animal but not the traditional San poison. It could be just another type of gum. If it is poison it may not be active now. It is best to treat it as if it is poison.

Very nice. I have one of those also and experimented with it many years back, out of curiosity. At the time I didn't know what I had and thought it might have been a sort of token ensemble, such as used by the Mbuti Pygmies of the Congo's Ituri forest in mating rituals.

I shot it at a spot about 4 feet up on a substantial 6 foot tall wooden fence from a distance of about 20 feet. I did not want to stress the bow or string too much and therefore only pulled it perhaps 30%. The arrow hit near enough (wink) to my mark and stuck. When I went to retrieve it, the triangle portion of the tip was nearly totally embedded and this was not soft wood, the entire fence rocked as I worked to pull it loose. Even at 30% it would have absolutely skewered any soft-skinned animal shot at that range. I gained a lot of respect for it then and you are quite right to assume it's deadly serious stuff.

My arrows are wrapped similarly to yours and are not fletched either. As a matter of interest; I remember reading somewhere that the metal tips were originally procured by the tribesmen using the expedient of dismembering barbed-wire fence lines they encountered on the Kalahari plain; then untwisting, cutting, straightening and working the individual strands into points, using campfires and rocks.

Hi Tim,
nice 'set' may not be all that old, as they can be readily bought over the net. It is unlikely there is poison on the 'stick'....more likely gum used to fix the sections of the arrow together. The most common poison used is that of a beetle larvae, info in the link below.
The arrows usually comprises of four parts. In former times the point was made of stone or bone, but since contact with iron-smelting Bantu-speaking farmers they have also used triangular iron points.

The point is fixed to a short reed collar which is, in turn, connected to the main shaft of the arrow by a small torpedo-shaped piece of wood or bone, the "link".
When the arrow strikes an animal, the impact causes the link to split the shaft so that longer portion falls away and the point is left embedded in the animal. If the point doesn't split from the shaft this could result in the animal dislodging the arrow when running through the bushes.

The arrows are carried in quivers that are normally made of the root of an acacia or quiver tree. When the root is heated, the bark expands, loosens itself from the pith of the root which is then removed from the bark. The sides of the quiver are covered in leather, which shrinks firmly around the quiver when it dries out. In the quiver, there will be a set of fire sticks standard kit for the bushmen.

http://www.museums.org.za/bio/insect...dae/arrows.htm

http://www.tsumkwe.com/curios.asp

Regards David

PS with the multiple postings, I thought you'd acquired enough bows to re-enact Agincourt ;)

Thanks for the links Dave. I do not think I will put the black stuff to the test :eek: . There are more "Bushman" than the "San" who may have used a different poison. These items have some age and a traditional life was lived by most groups untill the 1950s-60s. One of your links has made me think about this spear I have had kicking around. I did not know what to make of it. Perhaps it is the kill spear of the Bushman? It is of a Southern African form with some unusual aspects. The end is quite different from other South African spears. It seems never to have had any metal on the end either. Interesting?
I would reenact Crecy in the back garden but the neighbours might laugh at me :shrug: .

Hi Tim,

your spear has a similar iron binding holding the spearhead to the shaft...as these I posted awhile back.....and I still haven't discovered the origin, although like you, I feel they are from the South.

http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2133

The club is very interesting, never seen one like it before :cool: