Thanks for the column, some good information about bows in it. It's interesting that the Cherokee had sapwood on the belly side of their bows. It's my understanding that sapwood works better in extension than compression so the bow should work better with a sapwood back instead.
Anyhow, in Robert Hardy's book Longbow: A Social and Military History (ISBN 1-85260-412-3) there's a chapter on native American archery that includes some information about their bows. The most detailed is a description of the bows & arrows of
Ishi, the last surviving Yana, who died in 1916, from a book by his friend Saxton Pope, who reckoned them the best-designed & crafted examples of Indian bowmaking. I made some notes of the bow & arrow descriptions as follows (if you can find the book the relevant section's on pages 164-167):
Juniper wood bow ~45 pounds draw, ~42 inches long, ~200 yards range, backed with sinew applied with glue made from boiled salmon skins, sapwood back, broadest at centre of each limb, elliptical cross-section, 1¼ inch wide by ¾ inch deep central ovoid cross-section handgrip, bound for 4in with narrow buckskin thong, curves gently back at tip, ¾ inch wide by ½ inch deep at nocks. Nocks square shouldered and terminate in ½ inch diameter, 1 inch long pin.
Used 26 inch arrow shafts (preferring wych hazel) with hardwood foreshaft adding 6in length (total 32 inches), painted shafts with natural pigments (red cinnabar, black from eye of trout, green dye from wild onions, blue from root, all mixed with sap & resin), fletched with three feathers (eagle, buzzard, hawk or flicker), preferred wing-feathers, usually bound with sinew, rarely bothered with glue, tipped with flint or obsidian.
Could drive an arrow half its length (13-16"?) through the chest wall of a buck deer at 50 yards.
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