The Indian bow is usually from three and one-half to four feet in length, with such a difficult spring that one with no experience can scarcely bend it sufficiently to set the string.  Different tribes, of course, carry bows of different lengths, the Senecas having the longest.  The best of woods for making bows are Osage orange, hickory, ash, elm, cedar, plum and cherry; some of these are strengthened with sinews and glue.  Almost every tribe has three sizes, the largest being used for war purposes, and until an Indian can handle this war bow, he is not considered entitled to be called a warrior.

Some claim the Sioux and the Crows make the best bows, although the Apaches come close in the rank.  When the Sioux bow is unstrung, it is a straight piece of wood, while the Apaches and the Southern Indians make a perfect Cupid’s bow.  The Crows often use elk horns as material, and carve them beautifully.  The Sioux, to make the straight piece of wood more elastic, string the backs with sinews.  Often these are beautifully beaded and leathered, quite equaling, as a piece of art, the elaborate elk horn bows made by the Crows.  The Comanches’ bows are covered with sinew, much like those of the Apaches.  The object of practice is to enable the bowman to draw the bow with sudden and instant effect.  It is seldom that the Indian has need of throwing the arrow to a great distance.

The bow of the Western Indian is small and apparently insignificant, though its owner makes it very powerful, indeed.  From his babyhood days he has habituated it to his use, until it has become, as it were, a very part of his nature.  The Indian studies to get the greatest power out of the smallest possible compass, and he finds a short bow on horseback far more easily used and much more reliable in its execution.  In the Far West, bows are made largely of ash, and are lined with layers of buffalo or deer sinews on the back.  The Blackfeet have in use very valuable bows of bone.  Other tribes make use of the horns of mountain sheep.  Sometimes the bone bows will fetch very large sums of money, and deals have been noticed in which the consideration for one of them was a pair of ponies, with five pounds of butter thrown in as make-weight.

An athletic Indian on a fleet horse can do terrible execution with one of these bows, which, even in these days of repeating rifles, is by no means to be despised as a weapon.  No one can estimate the force of a throw from one of them when an artistic archer is in charge.  The effects from a wound from an arrow are so distressing that it is quite common to accuse an Indian of using poisoned arrows, when possibly such a fiendish idea never entered his head.  Only those who have ridden side by side with an Indian hunter really know how much more powerful an arrow shot is than the average man supposes.

In war the Indians would even now arm themselves in part with bow, quiver, lance, war club and shield.  The Northwestern tribes are partial to fighting with the bow and lance, protected with a shield.  This shield is worn outside of the left arm, after the manner of the Roman and Grecian shield.