Comanche Archery 101: The Bow 

what can i put on the back of the bow instead of rawhide, i cannot find it in my region.

@@maisetas ive made many bows and have used lots of backing material such as canvas, blue jeans, fiber tape and bamboo. I used titebond glue or knox gelatin from the grocery store to glue down the backing. Experiment with lots of fiber. Hope this helps.

Hi Isaac. Do you offer any for sale

Hey Isaac, looking to round out my Bow wall and a short style is what I'm missing. Looking through many different cultures for inspiration to have a bow made and am looking for about a 70-80lb draw weight in a short bow. Can the Comanche horse bows come in at that poundage?

I just wish we would have left them alone and lived like them. Life might have been less stressful.

@@lloydn1510 Wish we lived like Comanches? You mean constant warfare, torturing captives by burning them alive, strangling infant children, mass-raping women, and constantly stealing other people's horses? And this is just the stuff they did to the Apache and Navajo tribes, not to mention what they did to the Mexicans and Americans!

Only against White settlers but never against other Natives

@@widehotep9257the exact same thing was done to the innocent tribes of California and the civilized tribes of the east, by the white man. Many such actions taken under the context of war. 🤷‍♀️ that’s war and historical normalcies for you.

@@thunderbear4254 Nonsense! The Comanches were in constant warfare with most of their neighboring tribes. Read Hermann Lehmann's book. He was kidnapped by Indians when he was ten years old and later joined the Comanche tribe as a warrior. When they discovered their enemies had cannibalized a fellow Comanche, they hunted them down, made a pile of their wounded bodies and torched them while they were still alive.

🇨🇦🎯🇺🇸😁

Build one! 👍

Indeed,what an honor to have,n ,be able to use it for hunting...wast'e!

Call a comanche that makes Bows and order one . Quit being cheap .You live once .

Yes, they are definitely one of the easier diy bow patterns! But be prepared to be hooked after you build your first

Does anyone know someone who can make these? I don't have the skill.

I believe lee vidaurri was my great grandfather archie trevinos 1/2 brother.

Stupid comment

I own 2 copies of museum bows in terms of thickness and length one is 55lbs at 22" the other is 70lbs at 21", both 48" long

I'm guessing.. It's a way to allow reduction along the limb to allow even bending along limb... I taper my bows to do that. I have never seen this concave, but I think that would work..

I was wondering same thing! I just got into bow building.. when I get good enough I plan to take a trip to get sum Osage and make one of these.. for now I use any hard wood I can find near me..

Your a small man with some pent up agression towards native americans bro.

@@nisurasamfitness115 No, I just spent the winter reading five books and a ton of online articles about Native American culture. Most Comanche men were about five feet tall. They were probably the best mounted warriors of all time, and part of the reason was their smaller size that allowed them to perform gymnastic techniques while riding at full gallop. And they travelled extremely light compared to Apaches, Spaniards, and the American Army soldiers. This minimal cargo allowed them to travel twice the distance as their enemies in the same amount of time.

@@widehotep9257 oh okay sorry my bad

@@widehotep9257​​⁠ No they were not. Multiple old articles and sources say plains tribes in particular were among the tallest men in the world (at the time). Plains diet (bison/high protein), consistent exercise, less diseases experienced than an agricultural society.

@@saintultra2737 There were some rare six-foot Comanches, like Quanah Parker, but he was born to a white mother. According to eyewitness accounts and old photos, Comanches weren't very tall. Empire of the Summer moon is an excellent book about the Comanches that talks about this. The Comanches originated somewhere else far away (Wyoming, maybe?) and were driven off their lands due to warfare. Their small group migrated to the plains on foot. Only after they mastered the horse did they begin to dominate other tribes and grow to a large population. Other tribes had extremely tall warriors over seven feet tall, like the Osage.

@POOR PIRANO all plains bows were between 40-50 inches long. No way these bows would get a 27 inch draw mate, more like 18-23 inches of draw. Trade points were found lodged into early settlers skulls which would lead us to believe they were much heavier than 20-30. Reproductions are always between 40-80lbs in draw weight

Not laminated, heartwood and sapwood. Done also with yew.

tell that to a man in his thirties who by law practiced longbow since child hood back in the 12th 13th century. same thing as the comanches id say.

@@solomonstemplers You're not wrong. A man skilled in their way of fighting always uses their heart.

Medieval archery does not compare to the abilities of the Japanese or the Comanche, but thats just my subjective opinion. I still think archery in general is absolutely awesome and definitely different.

@@solomonstemplers but the comanches and most plains tribes literally pulled the bowstring to their heart/chest with a pinch grip whereas europeans generally pulled to an anchor near the eye or ear

@@nisurasamfitness115 the Europeans were generally using much stronger pull weights at longer distance both mastered they're own style.

Comanches kept bows and guns at equal footing, unlike other tribes (lakota , cherokee e.t.c) guns were not placed above the bow but kept in equal numbers, out of a war party some preffered guns some preffered bows, one was slow shooting but had high impact, the other was much faster shooting but had slightly less impact. chief quanah parker (the last comanche chief) was legendary with the bow and arrow and fought many people with guns with nothing but his bow, you can see pictures of him and nearly every one he is holding his bow. As for when they were used in battle, majorly up untill late 1800s , which is pretty recent .

The dances with wolves DVD talks about the hunt scenes, appears that the Native Americans never quit their culture. The movie shows real Indians on real buffalo ponies hunting with traditional bows on the Northern plains

Raven Feather It varies. Some of the museum pieces I have examined were unusually thick with their front to back profile. Averaging in length 50” and below, seldom sinew backed. It’s interesting to note that the Plains bows (pre-Columbian, before the introduction of the horse) were longer than 50”. It’s nearly impossible to determine the exact draw weight of a museum bow due to the varying characteristics of wood, but to answer your question I would say the average weight would be 50 pounds. The arrows were short as you would suspect, about 22”-24” long.

There is an event down in Oklahoma near Stillwater every year in March called O-Jam and it is 4 days of making self-bows. You can join and be assigned to a camp and they will teach you everything you need to know and help you build your own bow.

For Real Plains indian bows made by Real plains indians. Id recommend the Nakoda Craftsmen (Nakoda)or Richard Giago (Oglala Lakots) , they make all plains bows whether its comanche or otherwise they can hook you up. Richard is available on facebook and the Nakoda Craftsmen is on Instagram. They are your best bet for authentic plains items.

PAINTED, never carve into a bow.

Dell Johnson he didnt say but 40-60lb average with a 22-26" draw

+Dillon Flannery but they might have used the quiver to store ammo and some of the skilled warriors could have been able to shoot fast like faster than a six gun for all we know. It could have been utilized in that manner by the chieftain warriors and the ones what fought in the battle of the little big horn, we don't know if it was, but we don't know that they weren't either, because none of custerds troops survived to tell the tale.

+Dillon Flannery Despite all the talk, there is no real evidence that any archer held his arrows in his hand. He probably held a couple, but the quiver was not a Hollywood invention. I've owned quivers that were hundreds of years old. You don't go hunting, and you certainly don't go into battle, with only the three or four arrows you can hold in you hand, and once the fire the ones you're holding, then what do you do? Do you really think that's all the arrows you'll have with you, and ready to use?

+Brain Phelps Not faster than a six gun, but very fast. Yes, of course archers have always used quivers.

+Mermaid Man quoting that lars anderson guy eh? don't believe everything you see on the internet....

@@jamesaritchie2 bro theres plenty of pics of old warriors holding arrows in the.bow hand while shooting. If youd like to see drop ur email.

nope real ones died off these came after the ice age so many dumb asses

the first Americans landed one million years a ago they was Europeans in Europe they landed 8 million years ago in Europe

I normally don't comment on youtube videos but damn you are a stupid clown. There is absolutely no credible evidence that "the first Americans were actually European." not that you stated it so cogently. You are so insecure and desperate to feel that you own this land by right that you are willing to invent and propagate a fictional narrative about Ice age Proto-Europeans walking across the Atlantic. You just can't stand knowing that your ancestors weren't the first ones on Turtle Island can you? What academic credentials do you hold? None of course, now bite your tongue fool.

Rusty Harvey Scottish, Welsh and Irish the real English people.

please noirz13 try to talk above a moron just because you found no evidence don't mean there isn't any but its ok your kind is dime a dozen and dumb .

Reproductions are between 40-80 lbs, theres skulls of early settlers with trade points lodged in deep. A weak bow would not be capable of that

Many shots were through and throughs even on Buffalo. Theses bows while short and with low draw lengths still packed a punch!

Nope they wore wolf hides and snuck up next to the buffalo and shot them mainly, some tribes like the blackfeet preferred stampeding them down cliffs but most tribes hunted on foot

probably somewhere around 40.

Daniel Ponce

Daniel Pon b. ce

The average poundage was usually around 40lbs

of course they did , he mentions them .. pre columbian bows were longer and the arrows had flint points instead of steel the bow design still similar

Tribes on the plains that didnt do much horseback fighting still had very short double curve bows like this and even some sinew backed bows and horn composite bows. Bows have existed in the Americas for a untold period of time, no one knows when the natives started bow making, just because they found bow fragments from earliest a few thousand years ago does not mean they werent using them before that, wood degrades quickly.