Gifts from the Thunder Beings: Indigenous Archery and European Firearms in the Northern Plains and Central Subarctic, 1670-1870

8. Archery and Firearms in Hunting

8 Archery and Firearms in Hunting Through practical experience and observation, Aboriginal people of the Central Subarctic and Northern Plains acquired a vast body of knowledge about their environment and the interaction and interdependence of its plants, animals, climate, and weather patterns. Based on this knowledge, they fine-tuned their equipment to meet their needs, despite an environment that placed severe restrictions on their options for making tools and weapons—a harsh climate with few available wood species. Beginning in the early 1700s, the technology and methods of big game hunting and combat developed and used by Aboriginal people in these regions underwent tremendous changes, influenced by the introduction of European horses, firearms, and metal tools and weapons. This chapter discusses Aboriginal and European big game hunting weapons and the changes in hunting methods brought on by the introduction of these new technologies. Archaeological evidence in the form of lithic projectile points interpreted as arrowheads indicates that shortly before contact with Europeans , Aboriginal peoples in central and northern Manitoba used archery extensively.1 However, due to the unfavorable preservation conditions for organic materials, there is little if any information on those components of their archery systems—bows, arrow shafts, fletchings, and bowstrings—that were manufactured from wood, feathers, rawhide , or sinew. When Europeans entered into trading relations with Native peoples Hunting 205 on the shores of Hudson Bay in the late seventeenth century, metal arrowheads were part of the goods offered to Native people. For example, when Pierre Esprit Radisson and his brother-in-law Medard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, set out on their first voyage from England to Hudson Bay, to assess the feasibility of trading with the local Native people directly from Europe on behalf of the investors who later formed the Hudson’s Bay Company, they were directed to carry the following goods with them: “two hundred fowleing pieces & foure hundred powder hornes, with a proportionable quantity of Shott fitt thereunto, first bringeing patternes of the guns to bee bought, unto the next Committee, & more two hundred brasse kettles Sizable of from two to Sixteene gallons a piece, twelve grosse of French knives & two grosse of Arrow heads & about five or Six hundred hatchets.”2 Gradually, however, firearms gained in importance while the number of metal arrowheads dwindled in the trade inventories. By the mideighteenth century there were few if any sales of metal arrowheads recorded for the Hudson Bay Lowlands, while the sale of firearms, gun accoutrements, and ammunition gained in numbers. Even though the Hudson’s Bay Company trade ledgers at the time do not include metal arrowheads, Native people may have manufactured their own from old kettles and other European metalwares. The ascendancy of guns and related paraphernalia, such as shot and gunpowder, however, seems to indicate a steady decline in archery as the principal distance weapon for big game, and a steady increase in the use of firearms.3 The qualities of both weapons, firearms and bows and arrows, must be considered in order to gain a better understanding of some of the factors that may have influenced a hunter or warrior’s choice of one over the other. Reliability of Firearms and Bows in Wet and in Cold Weather Severe cold or wet conditions could negatively affect both Aboriginal and European weapons. Depending on the tree or shrub species they were made from, the wooden bows of Subarctic people were liable to break after prolonged exposure to low temperatures, because they often did not have enough tensile and compressive strength to stand up 206 Hunting to hard use during extremely cold weather.4 Fur traders and travelers recording ethnographic information on Algonquian- and Athapaskanspeaking peoples in the Central Subarctic observed the use of bows and arrows predominantly in summer, and much less in winter.5 In the Northern Plains, Aboriginal people had access to wood of greater tensile and compressive strength; however, the lengths of wood they could choose from were mostly knotty and short, as their growth was shaped by extreme temperature changes and severe winds. In order to be able to make serviceable bows from such flawed materials, they applied a sinew backing to their bows. Because the woods available to Plains peoples could endure greater compression strain than those available to Aboriginal people of the Subarctic, and because Plains peoples often employed sinew backing, they could use their bows in winter without major problems. In fact, the reproduction of a short...