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                                         THE BLACK LOCUST BOW AND THE  WILLOW ARROWS

 This story begins in March 1993, when I cut down a 25 to 30 year old locust. I cut and split the locust into post, not knowing one day that a part of the tree would be held in my hands in the form of a bow. It's 12 years later March of 2005. I have been building primitive weapons for about 6 years now. As I am walking across my dads property, I come across the post that I had cut 12 years ago. I wonder to myself, what kind of bow would the hardened and slitely weathered worn wood make. After thinking for a  few minutes, I decide to give it a try and make a bow. I go back to the house and get the 4-wheeler, so I can haul the post out of the woods.  I split the post down into four pieces and hang them up in the building to season for about another  2 1/2 months. Then I take one of the stavs and begin the shaping out of the bow.

             First I cut down thru 7 years of growth and follow the 7th year in growth ring, the full length of the stav. This will be the back of the bow. After some hours have past, the bow has taken form. When I am building a primitive weapon, I always think back and wonder about my ancestors. I think about the primitive tools they had to use to build bow, crossbows, arrows, catapolts, and other weapons. I think about the hard ships they endured and about how the flight of an arrow affected their lively hood. Whether to kill or bekilled or to starve or survive. I don't think I will ever truly know what it was like for them and I dont' think I would want to suffer thru the hard ships they endured. And when I am done with a day of primitive hunting or weapons making, I can go back to my life of luxury in comparison with their's.

            When I go into the woods to hunt. one of the reasons is to help create a balance in nature to control the game animals to insure a healthy herd of deer or turkey for the next generation. So much different from my ancestors which was solely about survival. A week has past since I finished the black locus bow, and I am getting ready to start on my arrows. Actually it began about a month and a 1/2 ago when I went to a pond that had willow growing all around it. I cut 14 raw arrow shafts 30" long, and between 3/8" and 1/2" thick. I got the straightest ones I could find and took them home and peeled the bark off of them. Then I bundled them up and wrapped them up with bungy straps and hung them up to dry. Now 1 1/2 months later. I am ready to start working down the shafts. I grab a piece of sand paper, then I stop. I think to myself how would the Black Foot have worked an arrow. I sat down to ponder for a while. then it hits me. I go to the edge of a field where there is a pile of sand rock. I get one of the bigger rocks, and take it home. I chip out a place in the side of the rock about 3/8" deep and 3/8" wide. I rub the raw shaft in the knotch until the shafts are close to the 3/8", the full length of the arrow. The old sand rock worked perfectly.

              I use a small fire to heat the shafts. Then i bend them until they are fairly straight. After the shafts are straight, I fletch them using turkey feathers. I use the eastern 2 fletch  which is a method the eastern native american indians used. They used sinew to secure the fletching to the arrows. For my arrow heads I would like to use a flint  head, but will probably go with  steel arrowheads, ones that I cut out of a metal 55 gallon drum. I owe it out of respect for the animals that I hunt to make a quick clean kill.

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