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Page: of 436
TWO PEOPLES
wolesem, all knew that the enemy force was superior, by reason of their
greater mobility and better weapons. Although arrows were effective and
lethal at close range, pistols and rifles were deadly at two or three times
the distance. This meant that an archer must work within an extremely
dangerous perimeter of fire in order to be effective.
Until the arrival of the white man, the limited range of the bow and
arrow had not been important, for all California tribes on the western
Sierra slope used the short bow. It was the logical choice in country
where opportunities for long shots seldom occurred. Hunting was ordinarily done by archers who concealed themselves beside animal trails
and waited for their targets to appear, usually no more than ten or twenty
yards away and sometimes closer. Both the hunter’s skill and his equipment were adapted to these special circumstances.
Even carrying a bow through heavily wooded or brushy terrain dictated the use of shorter weapons which would not tangle in the undergrowth. The length of a new bow was usually determined by holding the
piece of yew or cedar from which it would be constructed in a diagonal
position across the front of the user’s body. The piece of wood was
gripped in both hands, one placed beside the hip and the other outstretched in the opposite direction and lifted toward the sky at an angle
midway between the horizon and directly overhead. The distance from
one hand to the other was the proper length for a bow.
Although native yew was the favored wood for making bows, it was
hard to find. Because it grew only in dark and moist canyons, and very
slowly at that, few such trees ever reached maturity, and those few often
were nearly inaccessible. Most bows were shaped from branches taken
from the red incense cedar (called man). After being seasoned in a warm
and sheltered place, the man wood was scraped with flint or obsidian
until it assumed the desired shape.
So that it would not break when bent, the back of the bow had to be
coated with deer sinew, soaked and chewed and then applied in strips
over a thick layer of salmon glue which had been allowed to dry. Then, as
the deer sinew itself began to dry and consequently bent the bow in the
wrong direction, more of the glue made from boiling salmon skins was
applied over the sinew strips. After several days the backing and glue
were hard and dry and it was safe to begin limbering the weapon.
The arrows used were of many types. Some were designed for shooting birds, while others were for larger game, and most of these could be
removed easily from the target and re-used many times. Those to be used
against the wolesem were not of this type, however, but were barbed and
then dipped in rattlesnake venom.
284