Turkish Arrows and Museum Treasures

35). The guide book of the Museum stated that the Turkish objects were secured at the raising of the seige 40 of Vienna which had been taken by the Turks and retaken by German and Polish armies under the command of General John Sobiesky. A tent also in the collection belonged to the Grand Vizier Kara Musta- PHA. The bow was typically Mongolian. The arrow had four barbs and was beautifully made. It is interesting to observe that a time space of one hundred and eleven years, separates the two rings above figured and yet the free border of the leather flaps are identical in shape. An ivory Turkish ring of a later date, in the collection of Fig. 34 Thumb ring Turkey Fig. 35 Thumb ring Turkey Mr. George C. Stone, of New York city, has a leather edge cut squarely across (Fig. 36) . In the case with these objects at the Nurem- burg Museum was a drawing showing the attitude of the hand in holding the bow. A semi-tube of horn was grasped against the bow; a device made to enable the archer to pull the arrow within the bow in flight shooting, this was turned outward as if its purpose was to guide the arrow. The thumb-ring which should, of course, be on the right thumb is here shown on the thumb of the left hand upside down and backward ! I informed the Director of the errors in the drawing and 41 mention it now for the purpose of showing how Httle attention had been paid to these minor details. As this was nearly thirty-five years ago these errors have probably long since been corrected. While the Japanese practiced the Mongolian release I have never seen a thumb-ring, ancient or modem, in Japan. Instead of a ring they use a glove in which the thumb is greatly enlarged and grooved to admit the string. The glove may have the first and second fingers or all the fingers, the palm and back of the hand being uncovered. Mr. George C. Stone, to whom I am indebted for the privilege of drawing a number of archers' rings in his collection, in a letter to me, says, "I presume Fig. 36 Thumb ring Turkey you have a collection of archers' gloves with re-enforced thumbs, if not I have them with two and three fingers and one pair of full gloves. The latter are peculiar, the right thumb has an extra thickness of leather on the inside where the bow string would bear and the second and third fingers on both gloves are of a very much softer and lighter colored leather than the rest of the gloves. Both have ventilated openings in the palms." The Japanese archer's glove figured in the Badminton Archery is decorated with leaves on the thumb side. The Japanese archer's glove figiired in my memoir represents the typical form in Japan. In closing I wish to express my obligations to Mr. Lawrence Waters Jenkins for hunting up important references; to George C. Stone Esq., of New York, for permission to figure a number of interesting archers' rings from his collection; to Dr. W. P. Wilson, 42 Director of the Commerical Museum of Philadelphia, who while Chairman of the Philippine Government Board, St. Louis Exposition enabled me to study the Negritos from the Philippine Islands; to Mr. Kojiro Tomita for translations of Chinese characters and to those whose names are mentioned in the pages who helped me in various ways without whose kind assistance this contribution to the subject could not have been made. The following plates represent archers' rings drawn natural size, many of them hasty sketches. The first three plates are supposed to be Turkish and Persian rings, some of them attributed to India. Mr. George C. Stone informs me that on his last visit to the South Kensington Museum he saw a collection of possibly fifteen jade rings inlaid with rubies and emeralds, labeled India. If made in India it would be interesting to find out precisely in what place in India they were made. In the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts is an archer's thumb-ring of green jade with incised floral design in gold and rubies, a band of gold encircling each ruby. It bears no sign of wear and must have been worn purely as an ornament for the hand. It is exquisite in its beauty and workmanship. See plate III, Fig. 5. The last two plates represent archers' rings from China. White Jade, Ethnological Museum, Leyden, Persia 43 APPENDIX Transactions of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Primeval History Meeting of July 18, 1891 (P. 670. Paper on Bending the Bow. M. Felix von Luschan) (Figs. 10 and 12 are omitted in the following extracts) After considering the primary, secondary, tertiary, Mediterranean and Mongolian methods of bending (drawing) the bow, and after con- sidering a variety of arrangements for protecting fingers, hands and arms against a recoil of the bowstring the author returns (p. 674) to the Mongolian method with thumb ring in the right hand which it requires, he instances such rings from Syria, Korea and China and then says: It is very surpris- ing that we should also have knowledge of Fig. 7 such a ring in Africa. In the Royal Museum for Ethnology at Berlin there is an iron thumb ring (Fig. 7, p. 675) from the Benue country, collected by R. Flegel and designated by him as a bow-bending ring. In the face of such a statement, even if so far it has remained an isolated one it cannot be doubted that the Mongolian method is known also in Africa, for it is only with this method that a thumb ring can occur. I, myself, have a small ring with a long lateral spur (projec- tion) made of some light-colored oxidized metallic alloy which Ernst Marno brought from the Giraffe River and designated as a ring for bending the bow (Fig. 8a). As Marno could not at the time explain 44 to me how it was possible to bend a bow with such a ring, I took no further notice of his statement and considered the ring to be a knuckleduster. But there is in the Berlin Museum, as I saw only recently, a horn ring shaped quite similarly only larger, which is also designated as a ring for bending the bow (Fig. 8b) Although the way of using the ring is not clear as yet, nevertheless this furnishes now, after twenty years, an entirely unexpected confirmation of Marno's old statement and we will probably be constrained to assume also for the upper Nile regions the occurrence, an isolated occurrence perhaps, of the Mongolian method. The actual manner of using these thumb- Fig. 8a Fig. 8b rings with lateral spur remains occult, just as it has to be made clear how in Korea this diverging form has there arisen and maintained itself, alongside of the form usual and typical there. Aside of the five above mentioned methods of bending the bow, Morse enumerates a few others of less importance which are partly only individual methods and of which only one could be explained here, the bending with both hands. The archer lies on his back pressing both feet firmly against the bow. I, myself, have seen Bushmen shoot in this way, but the impression this made upon me was rather that of an artist's feat (an exhibition performance than that of a typical use.) On the other 45 hand I am today in the position to communicate a hitherto entirely unknow^i method of bending the bow, the Wute Method. For the knowledge of it we are indebted to 1st Lieutenant Morgen, the dashing and lively successor of Captain Kund, who observed this method with the Wute people in the back country of Kamerun and brought several pieces as ocular demonstration to Berlin. Unlike all other people of whom we know so far the Wute bend the bow not at all with the fingers but with the middle of the hand. For this they Fig. 9 use a ring which consists as Figure 9 shows of a small thin piece of board, bent like a bow (of a necktie) the ends of which may be drawn, more or less, together according to the size of the hand, by means of a leather thong (strip). This ring is worn in such a way that it is drawn over the hand to its middle with the closed end towards the radius and the open end towards the ulna. The string of the bow is caught and drawn tight with the edge of the radial side, whilst the thumb keeps the arrow in the desired position. 46 In succession to these hand rings follow, of course, the West African daggers with hollow handles (Figs. 10 and 11) which have so far become known to us (as existing) in the protectorate of Togo the Wute country and the Benue regions, especially (specifically) from the latter. Staudinger and Hartert brought already, 1886, a long dagger knife (Fig. 10) of the kind which they found with the Kadarra and Korro tribes where these knives serve as well as a hand weapon for defense, as for the quicker bending of the bow, by pressing the handle against the string. This statement is, of course, not quite clear, as with such aid one may gain rather in power, but hardly in quickness, nevertheless it results without dispute from this statement, that de facto also these tribes have the same manner of bending the bow, which since then Fig. 11 has been recognized more distinctly a little farther south by Lieu- tenant MoRGEN. But the Berlin Ethnological Museum has very numerous specimens of quite similar knives from the Togo Protec- torate brought thence by staff-physician Dr. Wolf and by Dr. BUTTNER and to the latter we are also indebted for the names Ssegara and Sama, both of which, as it seems, are common in the Sugu lan- guage, for the knives. It is true both travelers have considered them only as such (knives) and do not mention that they are also used for bending the bow, but there seems to be no doubt that they, just as the similar knives in the Benue countries, serve both purposes, at all events we have the specific information as regards the knife, (Fig. 11) from the Wute countries, that it is also used for bending the bow therefore besides the above described wooden middle-hard-rings, 47 ' . which serve the same purpose. To examine which is here the original and which the derived forms would be a difficult and perhaps also a -- useless task, at all events already the above consideration shows -- and practical attempt confirms that this method of bending the bow, whether by the aid of the wooden hand-ring, or by that of the iron dagger-handle, is an extremely powerful method. As a matter of fact it is far and away superior to every other method, not only on account of the ease with which the full strength of the whole arm is brought to bear upon the string, but also on account of the extraordinary delicacy with which the arrow is released at the decisive moment. The enormously powerful effect produced by this (bending) ring finds its counterpart in a protective apparatus for the left hand, which exceeds in its dimensions everything existing before. It consists � (Fig. 12) of a strip of leather tightly fitting the wrist, open and arranged for tying on the ulnar side, and carrying on the thumb side an irregularly conical erection of 10-15 cm. high also made of string or leather (hide) colored black and generally embellished with geometric ornamentations. This peculiar (or peculiarly) a symmetrical wrist band presents therefore to the rebounding string two inclined planes which completely paralyse even the hardest blow. The pursuit of the subordinate (minor) and apparently unimportant inquiry as to the method of bending the bow used by different peoples results thus in the disclosing of an unexpected manifoldness (variety) and furnishes inducment in various directions for further reflection. The material collected so far contains, however, by far too many gaps if the above communication concerning the Wute method fills one of these in a manner so entirely sui generis, the other gaps appear only the more lamentable, I may, therefore, be allowed to express the hope that future travellers will pay more attention to this question than has been done hitherto, and that the excellent, observation of Lieutenant Morgen will by no means remain the last one of its kind. 48 PLATE I Figure 1 White jade, inlaid with rubies and emeralds. Franks' Coll. Attributed to India. 2 White jade, deeply inlaid with gold. George C. Stone Coll. Persia. 3 Bronze; design roughly cut. Franks' Coll. Bought at Smyrna. 4 Thin brass, overlapping behind, design roughly cut. British Museum. No locality given. 5 White jade, inlaid with rubies and emeralds. Franks'. No Coll. locality given. 6 Iron, inlaid with copper and brass. British Museum.. Persia. PLATE I PLATE II Figure 1 White jade, with floral design in slight relief. George C. Stone Coll. Persia. 17th century. 2 White jade. British Museum. Persia. 3 Bone. British Museum. Persia. 4 Carnelian. British Museum. Persia. & .5 6 Carnelian. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. These are recorded in the old catalogue as follows: " Tradescantianum, or Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambert, near London, by John Tradescant, London. MDCLVI." PLATE III Figure 1 Bone, closely inlaid with minute, bits of brass with a band of larger round bits of brass. Franks' Coll. Bought at Smyrna. 2 Bone. Failed to record nature of inlay. British Museum. Siberia? 3 White jade with slight keel on back. George C. Stone Coll. 4 Ivory, simple decoration of circles and leaves. George C. Stone Coll. 5 Green jade inlaid with gold and rubies. of Fine Arts. Boston Museum 6 White jade. George C. Stone Coll. PLATE III PLATE IV Figure 1 Greenish variegated jade. Peabody Museum, Salem. 2 Deer horn. Peabody Museum, Salem. 3 and 4 Deer horn. From a group of five deer horn rings. Geo. C. Stone Coll. I have selected the largest and smallest to figure. 5 Ivory, with double character for "joy" in slight relief, Geo. C. Stone Coll. 6 Dark brown substance, "neither wood, metal or stone." Bamboo design, slightly etched, silver lined. Geo. C. Stone Coll. 7 Weathered jade, resembling jade from old tombs. Geo. C. Stone Coll. 8 Steatite. Peabody Museum, Salem. 9 Stone, characters in ancient form in slight relief. They read "Speak with sincerity." It is from the Analects of Confucius, Book I, Chap. 7. Peabody Museum, Salem. 10 Marble. Peabody Museum, Salem. ! J i I \ I I I � I I � I PLATE IV 3 Is iO PLATE V Figure 1 White jade, Hydra in slight rehef, flattened on one side. Franks' Coll. 2 White jade, abruptly flattened on one side, landscape in slight relief. Geo. C. Stone Coll. 3 White jade, abruptly flattened on side, the flat portion somewhat discolored. The flattened side, from its appearance, represents the original surface of the block of jade from which it was made. Geo. C. Stone Coll. 4 Amber-colored glass, deep yellow. Abruptly flattened on one side; flattened side slightly curved. Peabody Museum, Salem. PLATE V Morse, Edward Sylvester, 1838-1925 Additional notfes on arrow release. Peabody Museum (1922) PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE CARDS OR SLIPS FROM THIS POCKET UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY