Part IV

ground, and more than twenty thousand figures of the devils they worshipped have been broken to pieces and burned." Examples of lconoclasm by the Conquerors of Mexico, by W. H. Holmes. OF ARROW-RELEASE. work, Plates 90 and 93 of Vol. n. show apparenlly* a Mediterranean release ; and were there no other teutons for believing that these people practiced the tertiary release, it might be assumed that the Mediterranean Release was also practiced. The reasons are, first, that in every case the arrow is pulled to the breast or even * lower and, second, and of more importance, in every instance when the archer is shown with the right hand- toward the observer, the arrow is below the bow-hand, whereas in every case when the archer is shown withjjbe left hand towards the observer, the arrow is above the bow-hand. The bow is represented vertically, as in ajlrude and early figures ; but the artist, not being able to represent the bow foreshortened and horizontal, has unqpnsciously indicated the attitude of the tertiary release^ byJpreserving the atti- tude of the bow in relation to theJiand. We have seen that the^Medfterranean release has two forms, in one of which i#M&B�Tingers are brought into action ; in the other on& two fingers are so used. Eng- lish authorities say tMt if one can accustom himself to draw the bow with tvvqlingers, a better release is the result. While the difference between these two forms seems it slight, as indeed it ita> yet the practice to-day among European and American archers is to draw with three finders. It was eyjiently not so universally the form in Europe a few cenjuries ago; for at this time, judging from the few examples we have seen, the archers are aU most always deMcfed drawing with two tingers. It is true, the directions in the works of these early times as well as allusionsfto the subject state that three fingers on the string is thejBroper method of release. Yet the few sculptures, ivcffy carvings, etchings, manuscripts, draw- ings etc., to which we have had access, almost invariably depict the two-fingered release. It would be interesting to know whether the bow has t'8 ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS becqpe stiffer hi later years, requiring three fingers to bend it, |r whether (as more probable) the fingers have become weaker, thus requiring more fingers to do the work. It is interesting to find in these early works a uniformity in the method of release employed, and that the Saxon,, Norman, Fleming, French, English, Scandinavian, and Italian practiced essentially the same release. Hansar^says (seethe "Book of Archery," p. 77), "All representation^ of archers which occur in illuminated -- -- manuscripts of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries and I have examined some scores of them identify the ancient with the modern practice. The penand-ink drawings of John de Eous, a bowman as well as contemporary biogi^pher of that Earl of Warwick who, during the Wars ofithe Ked and White Eoses, was the setter up and destffe00L of many kings, will furnish amusement and inform amontojthe curious. The neces- -- sary slight inclination of tn^head�,and neck 'this laying of the body in the bow,' the drawjfcig with two and with -- three fingers are there correcjy delineated. They may be found among the manuscripts in the British Museum." \ According to Hansard, Ascham ordered the shooting- glove to be made with three fingers^ "and when Henry the Fifth harangued his troops previous to the battle of Agincourt, he endeavoured to exaspeKe their minds by dwelling on the cruelties in store for th^m. Addressing his archers, he said the French soldiers^had sworn to am- putate their three first fingers, so that they should never more be able to slay man or horse."1 : %i 1 Meyrick, in his famous work on "Ancient Armour" (Vol. i., p. 9), in speaking of the origin of the bow in England, says : " The bow as a weapon of war was cer- tainly introduced by the Normans; the Saxons, like the Talieite at the present day, used it merely for killing birds. On this account, in the speech which Henry of Huntington puts into the Conqueror's mouth before the battle, ie makes him stigmatize the Saxon as ' a nation not even having arrows.' I OF ARKOW-RELEASE. The earliest figure I have met with, illustrating ar^ in England, was copied from the Saxon manuscripts' in the Cotton Library. These manuscripts are of eighth century. If the wood-cut contained in St; " Sports and Pastimes " is correct, then the attitude hands shows distinctly the three-fingered Mediterrj release. The bow is short and thick, and has a| curve, something like the Soman bow, from which indeed it might naturally have been derived. 1 The following examples have come under^my notice in a very hasty and imperfect survey of the field, principally derived from books, engravings, and ivmtf carvings, reproductions, etc., in museums. The celebrated Bayeux Tapestry, a ' copy of which may be seen at the South Kensington Museum, represents the archers in the attitudeof the/two-fingered Mediterra- nean release, though a few arefRiown using three fingers. Also the following showBie two-fingered form of the Med- iterranean release wit t exception : a fresco in Kumla Church, Vestmanlan o., Sweden, 1492; a sculptured figure in wood by echt Durer, figured in Som- merard's "Arts of t xxvii.), also in the a chess piece in i iddle Ages " (5th Series, Plate me work (10th Series, Plate xxv.) ; supposed to be of the tenth or eleventh century; eyrick's "Ancient Armour" (Plate vin., Vol. i.), a of a Norman of the eleventh cen- tury, on the dooj ay of the Cathedral of Amiens, a cast of which mi be seen at the Trocedero Museum and, finally, in ti Boston Museum of Fine Arts are a number of Flore engravings of the early half of the fifteenth ceutun&pmd these in every case represent in the i It may be wgip(jpptate here that opportunity has not permitted an examination of sources^.- early Roinan releases. On Trajan's column a few releases are shown, anil these are of the Mediterranean form. 7 ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS st manner the two-fingered variety of the Mediter- A release. curious form of the Mediterranean le is shown on the door of the Church of the Made- Vezelay, a cast of which is to be seen at Troce- [useum. In this release the archer has all four on 'the string, the arrow being held between the secon^fcand third fingers. I had supposed that this was a mistake of the artist, as indeed it may have been, but Col. James Stevenson, in describing to me the methods of re- lease among the Navajo Indians of North America, illus- trated a release , identical with this four-fingered variety. �* In conclusion, |t is interesting to observe that all the re- leases thus far described have been practiced from the earliest historic timefe. k Each release with the exception of the primary release, which admits of no variation, has one or more varieties, the secondary release may have the second finger, or the second|and third fingers on the string. Some forms of this release in India and Assyria show all the fingers on the string^it is hardly probable, however, that these are correctlwppresented. The tertiary release may have the first S$jH�second, or the first, second, and third fingers on the strinal The Mediterranean release may be effected with two cjajhree fingers, and in two instances all the fingers, on the sSi^ng. The Mongolian release may have the assistance only oathe first finger as in md the Chinese and Manchu, or the first second fingers as -- in the Korean and Japanese, or, if ^jghtly interpreted, the early Persian form, with the secorid and third only aiding the thumb ; and if the Mongoliaiarelease described on page 161 be an established form, tl^n we have here a mixture of Mongolian and secondary. A The persistence of a release in a people |s well illustrated in the case of the Aino. For centuries the Ainos have \ V. OF ARROW-RELEASE. 5V battled with the Japanese, and must have been mindfl^fof the superior archery of their enemies ; indeed on all hi with the exception possibly of the Kamtschadals at north, the Ainoshave been surrounded by races pracf the Mongolian release, and yet have adhered t^ primitive methods of shooting. The releases vary in their efficiency and strength, two strongest and perhaps equally powerful re^ the Mediterranean and Mongolian ; and it is in^ note the fact that the two great divisions of tjjSr human family who can claim a history, and who Jj9�e been all dominant in the affairs of mankind, are thejflediterranean nations and the Mongolians. For threeSr four thousand years, at least, each stock has had its aeculiar arrow-re- lease, and this has persisted througtyflf the mutations of time to the present day. , Langige, manners, customs, religions have in the course .of centuries widely separated these two great divisioniuj$8%�tttions. Side by side they have lived ; devastating^wars and wars of conquest have ^d marked their contact ; yet the apparently trivial and simple act of releasing- the arrow from the bow has re- mained unchanged . J& the present moment the European and Asiatic archer, s|R>ting now only for sport, practice each the release whichTftiaracterized their remote ancestors. Want of material wjff prevent more than a passing ref- erence to a peculiaij* practice of archery which Moseley alludes to as pedestrml archery. It. is a matter of com- mon record that injwidely separated parts of the world, as South America, Clpia, and Africa, the archer uses his feet in drawing the bow. In an " Essay of Archery " by Walter Michael Moseley^792, the writer says : "It is recorded by ancient writes that the Ethiopians draw the bow with the feet ;" and again, Xenophon speaking of the Caducians gays : " Thevbacl bows which were three cubits long, and ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS arrows two cubits. When they made use of these weapons, tJimr placed their left foot on the bottom of the bow, and bySfaat method they drove their arrows with great vio- etc. ecorded of the Arabians that they used their bows maimer above alluded to, by the help of the foot, lease in these cases must be of a most vigorous r ; and when in some accounts the archer is representeCas resting on his back, with both feet bracing bow, the string is probably clutched with both hands, aftJrHhe manner I have provisionally called the archaic releasl In the followWP classified list of releases and the peo- ple who practice ntem, it is shown in a general way that the primary, seconda^pfind tertiary releases are practiced by savage races to-day, asmell asby certain civilized races of ancient times ; while the J?Heditjerranean and Mongolian re- leases, though originating" time, have always char- acterized the civilized and domins t races. The exceptions to this generalization are curio fc� the Little Andaman islanders practicing the Medite: ean release, and the inhabitants of the Great Andarn Island practicing the tertiary release, are an illustration he fact that the vari- ous groups of Eskimo practicing tb editerranean release, and so far as I know being the oh people who have de- signed a distinct form of arrow for t' s^method, is exceed- ingly curious. Mr.- John MurdocMffwho is engaged in a careful study of the Eskimo, has exp2ssed to me a sur- mise that certain arts of the Eskimo mawhave been derived from Greenland through Scandinavia^colonists ; and this might explain the anomaly. It may be shown that in tribes in whicj| the bow is but little used, and then only for small bir�r and game, the release is weak or irregular. The data, hoj^er, are alto- gether too few to establish any conclusions respecting this. �tai. !fc. OF ARROW-RELEASE. 5 CLASSIFIED LIST OF TRIBES AND NATIONS REFERRED TO IN THIS PAPER. Primary release. RECENT. Savage. Ainos of Yezo. . Demerara, S. A. Navajo, N. A. Chippewa, N. A. Micmac, Canada. Penobscot, N. A. Ute, N. A. ? Secondary release. served. blished. ported. observed, photograph. Ottawa, N. A. Zuni, N. A. Tertiary release. Chippewa, N. A. jjtSi Savage. Omaha, T&. A. . Sioux.Jg^A. . Arapahoes, N. A. C)�eniies, N. A. . AaKniboins, N. A. Comanches, N. A. . rows, N. A. kfeet. Nalajos, N. A. . feat Andaman Islander Civilfz�d. '" Siamese. observed, reported. observed, reported. published, observed. Mediterranean release. Obliged. LEuropean Nations. observed S and published. Sa&age. J Point Barrow Eskimo. Cumberland Sound Eskimo. East Cape Siberia Eskimo. Little Andaman Islander. reported, published. ANCIENT AND MODERN METHODS Mongolian release. V Civilized. Manchu soldier, China. Cantonese, China. Korean. Japanese. Turks. Persians. Irregui, E. Temiangs, Sumatra. r Primary release. ANCIENT. "^fu. Civilized. Assyrian, early. "5 Egyptian. Grecian? W Secondary release. u <. Civilized. Assyria' later. India? Tertiary release. Civilized. Egyptian Grecian. Mexican? Mediterranean release. Civilized. Assyrian, later. Egyptian, early. Arabian. Indian. Roman. Middle Ages. English. French. Norman. Fleming. Saxon. Swede. Florentine. observed. published. observed. OF ARROW-RELEASE. MONGOLIAH RELEASE. Civilized. Chinese. Scythian. Persian. Egyptian. ? Greek. ? Archaic release? Civilized. Ancient Greek. It is hardly necessary to call attention to the^importance of a more systematic study of the methods offarchery and paraphernalia of the archers than has yet been done. I would point out the necessity of obsermfg greater care in copying drawings, rock-inscriptions>^e^cos, bas-reliefs, -- etc., also the minor details, suer as the position of the hand, the shape and diameter pr the ends of the bow and arrow, and the shape gf'tn(Heathers ; also the possi- bility and importance of identifying among ancient objects and drawings arm-guardsVthumb-rings, arrow-rests, etc. Travellers and explorers ought also not only to observe the simple fact that such and such people use bows and arrows, but they should accurately record, (1) the atti- tude of the shaft hand; (2) whether the bow is held vertically or horizontally; (3) whether the arrow is to the ri�ht or to the lelt of the bow vertical ; and (4) , of which no comment has been made in this paper, whether extra arrows are held in the bow-hand or shaft-hand. method of bracingfthe bow is of importance also. The The remarkable ^persistence of certain forms of arrow- release among various nations leads me to believe, that, in identifying the affinities of past races, the method of using the bow may. form another point in establishing or dis- proving relationships. By knowing with more certainty the character arfd limitation of the forms of arrow-release, ANCIENT AND MODEEN METHODS OP ARROW-RELEASE. gclew may be got as to the date and nature of fragsculpture representing the hand. The peculiar ^of the archer might lead to the interpretation of statu es. K>r would be very grateful for any information regart|jnj|the methods of arrow-release of tribes and peoples. Particularly would he desire the release as practiced by theVecfdahs of Ceylon, the Hill tribes of India, the tribes oJsAfrica, South America, and especially the Fuegans. flagged, any information regarding the methods of arrow-relmsjfin any part of the world would be acceptable. SuchtasHiroRSjJ in the shape of descriptions, photographs, drawin$3yand if possible specimens of bows and arrows, may be*^*|to the author, Peabody Academy of Science, Salem, MasW^TJ.S.A., for which full credit will be given in a future Wblieatjpn on this subject. uy In addition to those mrea nentioned in these pages to whom the author is undefobligations, he would men- A tion Gen. Charles Loring, Mt. Edward Robinson, Prof. Otis T. Mason, Eev. W. C Winslow, Mr. T. F. Hunt, Dr. W. S. Bigelow, Prof. JohfllRobinson, Mr. S. R. Koeller, and Prof. E. F. Fenollosa^who have in various ways rendered him kind assistance. oB