Iv'e been a serious DIYer for 55 years and even you weren't interested in archery could listen to this guy Willie all night he has a great way of explaining his processes and wants you to know everything, a pleasure listening to him, thank you
The oldest find of a bow in Europe is 23 Km nearby where I live. Deer Hunters 30.000 years ago. For me as a traditional bow shooter it's a honor to keep the knowledge of bow and arrow making alive. Great knowledge! I pay respect for this man and his way.
@@spazemfathemcazemmeleggymi272 don't know which calendar you are using, but the world is definitely older than 6.000 years. Even the first native American are there for more than 15000 years.
My great grandfather didn’t have much to do with me as a kid. He was mad at the world and I get it now. I wish I knew what he was taught as a kid where he was forced to live. Cherokee Nation
My father used white cedar for his shafts and I think it might have been some feathers from a pheasant...he learned on a reservation in Michigan Thank you for sharing and helping me remember my dad ❤️
When Mr. Pekah said about arrow fullers "I was said these are blood grooves to let the blood out, I then discovered they actually are for adding to the arrow's strength", I (a mostly swords guy even if also archer) felt a current of empathy with him, for we sword dudes have been told the same and realised the same ourselves. Plus, I never would have imagined Comanche arrows were actually fullered - let alone, TRIPLE fullered. Quite impressive.
The blood groove is misunderstood by many even in swords and knives, the "Fuller" in fact didn't make things stronger. It made them lighter, and stronger for thier weight size. 2 blades of the same exact proportions, thickness and size can be side by side. Put a fuller on one, it will be weaker than the twin of it. But, it will be lighter and retain much of its strength. It will tho be stronger than a blade made to same size but thinner, that is of the same weight. I hope that makes sense as it's confusing I know lol. There's no reason for the grooves for blood on wood shafts. The oversized arrowhead, and it's lashing will have made a plenty good size hole already. This likely was done to stabilize the wood so it accepted humidity at a more even weight. They didn't wait around and spend alot of time clamping them as he says either. They many times toss them on the fire while green still and basically steamed them. Then as they cool simply hold them straight till they cooled. They also didn't rely solely on straight tiny trees as he implied. They was more than capable of processing large tree into arrows as well. Any section of timber that was free of knots made the best ones. They would cut the log to the length they needed for arrows. Then start splitting away until they was left with basically large sort of squared perfectly straight sticks. They'd take a flint scraper and round it's edges. Then you have a true good arrow that's knot free and very strong. Free of the growth bands causing issues that saplings present also. They wouldn't Crack as they dried etc. They did the same with bows. They only relief on bundle style bows in areas where they was no trees pretty much. But I digress. This really didn't teach much. But how to use modern tools to make an arrow that looks similar to old ones. No spin on the fetching even. I'll have to look again but I think they knew that. He didn't wrap near the knock either. The bowstring would split them pretty fast. They build animal parts to make glue. Also saps. That wasn't really even attempted or mentioned. No one left saws around then. They was either traded for, or stolen. They was prized even by them, more so than the arrowheads. They could make them easy. They couldn't make saws. If they dull, they was sharpened. Till they was gone nearly. These would have been prized far more than the heads. However. They did take things like butt plates off of rifles to make them. Anything that wasn't useful was scavenged. Including and especially wagon wheels. They didn't care about those at all really. So yeah those would have been used. He says the weight would be bad. No. While they did use naked fire hardened wood for the tips, this was for up close things like birds, and especially fish. With fish I doubt they even wasted time with feathers etc as They'd likely lose the arrow. But, take one of those stick arrows and try to kill something with a thick hide, and They'd bounce off if they didn't have kinetic energy from the added mass and cutting power. While here in South Alabama flint was non existent really, I've heard they used things like alligator gar scales. Anything that cuts. As a kid I once found a rare very delicate sandstone arrowhead. I wish I still had it. My brother dropped it from about a 1 ft high coffee table and it broke. My parents thru it away. This made me realize how much they tried even hear to get something vaguely sharp and heavy. Even sandstone. I've seen renditions of grooves on arrows being done with spirals as an attempt of non fletched arrows. I've seen even hide and ribbons hanging on the end of spears, and atlatle spears to help stay straight. They was very smart. This guy reminds me of my dad. His mom was a full blood Choctaw Warrior. He's half, I'm a quarter by that alone, maybe more of others are native in my tree. No clue tho lol. But my dad does the same thing tho. He'll tell complicated stories and fill in the gaps as he goes. Kinda funny to watch and listen to. I'd like to see this fella actually show some made the old way with actually tools they used tho. I get it tho, why bother when ya have new tools. But that's for making them privately. If ya gonna do a video on how they did it, at least show it the right way. Other than that, good video. I love to learn.
@@notfeedynotlazyна самом деле долы нужны для того чтобы уменьшить поверхность трения на холодном оружии это важно для более точного прохождения клинка в теле.
This is a fantastic instructional video! I occasionally made arrows since boyhood for I loved to play "Indians" with my friends. One major reason why I didn't care much about the "Cowboys" part was, because if you wanted to be a cowboy, you needed some kind of toygun revolver and my parents would definitely not waste money on such frivolous nonsense. But the bow and arrow, I could make them myself, plus the big advantage was, that in contrast to plastic toyguns which may look fancy but realistically were pretty useless, they were real weapons of a quality that solely depended on me figuring out how to make them properly. Another advantage of being a kid with bow and arrows was, that you could play being Indians but be just as well equipped if you and your friends wanted to impersonate Robin Hood or some other heroe of the pre-firearms past closer to our own European culture (I'm Swiss so we boys felt obliged to follow the example of William Tell and strive to become unerring marksmen.) Stalking through the woods to come close enough to some bird or squirrel to loosen an arrow on the unsuspecting critter was something I never grew tired of in those childhood days. Despite never hitting them, even a close miss was thrilling! As a seven year old I once spent an entire afternoon in front of a mousehole, ready to shoot one of those little critters with my arrow the moment it would stick its head out, for I had made up my mind, to furnish my mother at her next birthday with a luxurious fur coat, made entirely from the grey pelts of 20-50 field mice. According to my calculations this should pose no big problem, as there were countless mouseholes on that sunny grassy hillside to make at least a dozen coats with. Truly, I was a passionate and determined hunter back then but I knew, killing even a mouse without a genuine purpose, just for the sake of killing was a bad thing, so the idea of turning them into a fur coat as a gift for Mummy seemed kind of a genious strike to me, the perfect response in case someone would ask me what the heck I was doing, especially in light of the fact that we were strictly forbidden to do any kind of hunting. So I figured, I was in posession of a real life "get out of jail free" card, come hell or high water! Feel free to use that concept with proper adaptations to your individual situation when you go poaching, not as your prime strategy of course, but more as a last ditch attempt. Make sure you can present your story with a perfectly straight face if caught by the land-owner (but don't waste your breath with that kind of talk vis-a-vis a Sheriff or game warden), the trick is to actually believe it yourself at least a little bit! Of course these were the days long before the internet and RU-vid, so we depended almost exclusively on trial and error in the manufacturing of our weaponry. I vividly remember the frustration of wittling down a sapling of hazlewood that attracted me on behalf of its nice and straight form, into a beautifully shaped bow, only to discover that, when stringing it and trying to draw, it would very unceremoniously break immediatly. Hazlewood despite being far from perfect, would at least give me halfway decent arrows for the moment. Things changed significantly when my third and forth grade teacher was educating us about the ways of our stoneage ancestors. Part of this was him having us do some practical work like grinding a piece of animal bone into the shape of an arrow point or some other primitive tool or decorative item by using a piece of flat sandstone for which the place we were living was very famous for. But the crowning part of our journey into the lives of our hunter-gatherer forefathers was the making of a pretty crude but nevertheless perfectly functional longbow together with an arrow. Praise and respect for this patient and dedicated old teacher, that knew so well how to respond to the desires and needs that probably live in every preteen boys heart and mind! The man got some things wrong about the art of bow- and arrowmaking, but he was full on the mark when it came to picking the right kind of wood for the task, which in our case was coming from the ash tree. From there it took me only another three decades untill I found out about the Yew-tree, the absolutely finest material to make a longbow in my part of the world. The discovery and subsequent archeological research that was published about Ötzi the Ice-man, that was recovered with a full kit of tools and weaponry used by the alpine tribesmen of the late Neolithic, early copper-age period of about 5300 years ago, revealed at last the mystery, what kind of bush or tree would make the absolute best material to furnish arrows from. It is the "Viburnum Lantana" aka Wayfarer or Wayside-tree, a plant that is naturally found all over Europe. As it is also cultivated, it can be found quite often in public parks and privat gardens or even lining the streets in the countryside. As a decorative bush it has found its way into the New World, it grows very well in most parts of the North-American continent. Its wood is very elastic and strong, which makes it perfect for arrow shafts that will not break, thus making the effort and time that goes into furnishing a fine arrow allthemore worthwhile. So, thanks a lot for the wonderful video, I have learned a lot new, fascinating, useful things that I certainly will try out sometime soon. As it just so happens that I reread the book "Carbine and Lance" by W.S. Nye a few days ago, I was familiar with that picture of your ancestor Kobay, member and second chief of the Quahada Comanches. And having studied carefully every one of the fine portraits of Kiowa and Comanche Indians from the 1860's and 70's in that book I have to say you yourself very much look like those old time warriors. It gives me great joy to see that the Comanche people are still alive and kicking and am grateful to you for sharing all those distinctive and important details about Comanche arrow making, authentic, practical knowledge of those excellent hunters and warriors of bygone days, not to forget their stunning expertise in horsemanship of your illustrious ancestors. When my father who himself had read "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee" and similar books, noticed my fascination with the culture of the North American Indians, he gave me one precious advice, that is to avoid all those cheap "Cowboy and Indian adventure stories" but to look out for literature, that tells the true story of the red man. I followed that advice dilligently and found it extremely rewarding, today with the possibilities of the Internet more than ever. I never lost that genuine fascination with the exciting and tragic story of those marvelous, freedom loving people before, during and beyond the heyday of the mounted nomadic bison hunters if the plains, the Comanche, Lakota, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Apache, Blackfeet, Crow and many others. From Switzerland I send my best wishes for the present and the future of You, Your family and the entire Comanche tribe!
You clearly were brainwashed by pseudohistoric nonsense. Nothing you think of when you think of Indians from Cowboys and Indians is actually Indian. They didn't have horses, they had hide not leather, they didn't have weaving, they sure as heck didn't have iron, their bows were flat bows capable of shooting maybe small game like rabbits (10-20 pound draw) with wooden or stone heads, they didn't have saddles, stirrups, or complex clothing, they didn't have any dyes outside of browns and oranges, and whilst they were obsessed with the colour red ever since Leif Eriksson introduced them to it they had no such colour. All of that is indigenous European stuff that they adopted much later. So you're fetishizing it solely because you see them as an 'exotic' culture different to yours, yet all the elements OF said culture are literally your culture, adopted by them, and apparently forgotten by yours.
That was real interesting! You know, you see in the Hollywood movies every time there is an attack in the westerns you see arrows sticking everywhere. Man, as much troubles as those things are to make I wouldn’t leave one of them anywhere. I can’t imagine anybody else would either except to do it on purpose to make a point.
Though an invasive species, I found privet hedge grows very straight and very strong. Makes great arrow wood and also can dry great bow wood as a "stick" bow. Fast and easy made bow. Most bow size stalks have an bow to them and are already "bow" shaped. Have made many bows and arrows from many woods and for bows I really like mulberry, hickory and privet. Thanks for passing on your great heritage and knowledge.
Some dunce planted a ton of Privets around my house (obviously long before I owned it,) To the point some had grown into full-size trees (they do not make good trees.) And while I've cut them down, without destroying the entire root systems, they just start regrowing again. I had been cursing them, but with this information, I might just have to start making them work for me, instead of against me! Thanks!
I'm so glad I found this video. The progression of the manufacture of Mr. Pekah's arrows is a tribute to generations of Comanche skill, innovation and adaptation. (They made them then, he's making them now. It angers me when I hear any viable society referred to as primitive, our First Nations most definitely included.)
Beautiful work and best video ive seen on arrow making, im part Cherokee and a blacksmith but i love learning techniques from all the elders ,much respect
That was magnificent and I absolutely appreciate Mr. Pekah's knowledge. I photographed whatever arrows the Smithsonian had in their collections. But it is always useful to see one manufactured the right way. Thank You Willie
Best video I have ever seen on Native Tribal arrow making techniques . Something I had read on steel Comanche arrowheads is that they would use the metal bands off wood barrels to fashion their triangular arrow heads . These bands were soft and pliable to form around the barrels making then easy to cut with a hammer and cold chisel into the classic triangle shape . After cutting they were sharpened with a file and lastly tempered to harden in a fire then quenched in water .
I live in Comanche Texas, Comanche County. I'm 64 and grew up when Comanche was the peanut capital of Texas. Every yr after the peanuts were harvested and especially after a good rain we would walk and hunt points. I have never found a metal point although I have seen them from north of me. Since peanuts aren't grown here anymore, most fields were planted in coastal hay. That made hunting point less productive. Now that the Californians have moved in, bought all of former farmland, put 2 million dollar homes with 10 fences around them, it's much worse. Three of the largest Comanche encampments now have houses just like that sitting right in the middle of them. I would love to ask them if they have any strange happenings in and around them.
As a writer trying to think about my post apocalypse setting (my main character is a hunter and archer) and how one would go about making their weapon and ammo in a world with limited resources (modern items are out of production and rare in my main character's time). This video was awesome!!
osiyo. i cant recall the last time, i met some one in uk, who makes arrows from natural materials, that was fascinating, i was glued to the screen. thank you
I have been told that the groove along the arrow was for strength, after passing through the fire the groove hardened, anneled by heat to strengthen the arrow. Thank you for you teaching.
@@CONEHEADDK an arch is stronger than a straight line, because force is distributed differently. If you put a force on a straight line, it gets focused to the place you are putting the force on. If you put a force on an arch, the arch supports itself. If you look into architecture you see that arches became very popular choices for supporting bridges, because they can hold up more weight. I assume there is a similar principle at work with the arrows that have grooves on them Really oversimplified explanation, hopefully that makes sense for you
@@bucketspree4952 I understand your theory, but - even though I haven't worked a lot with designing that kind of constructions - I'm pretty sure, the arch is only stronger from the side, it bows towards.
Two things that blows my mind, was the use of blood grooves and making heads out of metal( wagon wheels and saw blades. A very good example of use what you got! It also explains Hollywood's "Indian guide" in the horseshit and gunsmoke movies telling the troops/cowboy that the attack on the dead pin cushions was done by XYZ tribe by looking at the feathers! Thank you for handing down some of your knowledge and wisdom, another line to add to my book of live!
The man talking about making arrows I'd like to say thank you for being. Meaning I'm glad iv heard you speak. I'd love to sit with you and listen to your crafts and wisdom. You are a very special man. My name is Danny I'm an Artchery and a carpenter and I'm grateful for your wisdom
Thank you Willie Pekah. The bundling of shafts and constantly harvesting more on the go is very interesting. OK, it is all very interesting. I suppose your people did not hunt the woods so much as no mention of hardwood blunt heads that are easier to recover after shooting at birds and squirrels. Other heads may work well on water for hunting ducks and frogs. Different cultures, different terrains and climates
Very informative and great to hear. I was planning to make my own arrows. I’ll now look at making them in this traditional way. I believe we need to keep history alive, especially the languages, techniques and history
As a newcomer to archery I found this enthralling. Apart from a few differences , length, feathers, and arrowheads, I imagine this is how they have been made worldwide for centuries.
This is a way not all ways,... their are many ways to skin a cat, in different location's there were different resources/ way's, the further north west that you went and up the west coast.
GREAT INFORMATION. THANK YOU for SHARING YOUR HERITAGE. IF YA WANT TO LEARN THE BEST WAY TO DO SOMETHING, LISTEN TO PEOPLE WHO DID IT FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGAIN THANK YOU AND KEEP EM COMING.
Great to see from a man whom was teached directly from his tribe members how to make arrows. It shows the technique how our ancestors here in Europe made their hunting tools thousands of years ago.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge and heritage. I found the methods and detailed explanations very helpful to better understand how and why something is done and the progression of it.
Thank you for sharing with us. I have recently become extremely interested in short traditional bows and arrows. Amazing, I'm 65 and becoming drawn to so many things I never had an interest in before.
your work is so important for human menkind, it is one of the best clips I have ever seen in my life on RU-vid. Greetings from Germany to all of the proud and wise native Comanches.....
Have heard of metal points. Have only found one in Texas . But never new which tribes here in the United States used them! Thank you for the information! I love historical news. I also love learning about the history of native American culture. From a military perspective we have copied many of these historical sources. Thank you for the information and I will try to duplicate this on my own hunting arrows!
Keep sharing these traditions. They’re lost arts. The stick and string has been a reliable form of hunting for many years. Thank you for sharing this 🏹
Thank you so much for your video. Ancient knowledge is best passed on by a working practitioner. I'm an Celtic archer and am fascinated by all things indigenous, it stirs something deep in my soul. Thank you so much for sharing this skill please do many more videos.
*I've probably fired 10,000 arrows in my life. About 1/3 of them wooden arrows. Old ones, & new ones. Some of them as old as the 1940's. Cedar, Ash, Hickory, Bramble, Orange Osage, Willow, even some hand turned Apple & Basswood. Handmade & Machine made, Bear, Ben Perason, Easton, Hoyt, every maker I can think of, most of them long out of business....I've never in all these years, in all those arrows, even seen a fluted or grooved arrow*
Thank you for the great video. I’ve been making my own arrows for a while now. It’s always great to see new ways of doing things with different materials. Thanks again!
awesome thank you , i wish there are schools that teaches Native arts and culture , all the besyt to you man and thanks again for sharing your art and knowledge
Thank you. It's good to know that arrows can be made of dogwood, or wild cherry. The standard , industrialised carbon fiber àrrows, standardised to the gram, have nothing to do with the fine, tradition & heart felt crafts of the Comanche crafted arrows & the like. Thank you again for pointing me in the right direction!
