DRAWING THE LONG QR SHORT BOW: Modern Archers Would Put Rebin Hood To Shame

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 141, 6 March 1942, Page 6

DRAWING THE LONG QR SHORT BOW:

Modern Archers Would Put Rebin Hood To Shame

AVE you ever drawn the long bow — or for that matter, the shorter American flat bow? If you have, you have been one of a fairly numerous company, for archery is New Zealand’s latest sport, and it is growing rapidly in popularity. From Dunedin, where there is now a flourishing body of bow-men and bow-women with their own butts and club-house in one of the city’s reserves, the sport has been spreading northward in the past year or so. There is a club in Christchurch; in Hokitika a nucleus of enthusiasts among the staff at the hospital has attracted many adherents from the townsfolk; in Wellington people carrying bows and arrows _ have begun to appear on the streets and a new club is rapidly gaining membership; there is, or there was, a club among Air Force men in Auckland, and a club is Leing formed at a Dunedin camp. And probably in many other places not mentioned the twang of the bow-string may now be heard. Nor is it likely that New Zealand’s interest in this antique pastime is just a local craze, something that will boom and bust as rapidly as yo-yo or miniature golf. Not, that is, if the experience of other countries is any guide, for the revival of archery overseas during the past decade is one of the most interesting and incontrovertable facts of the modern sporting world. Those who prophesied that its rapid growth in the United States was just another example of the American passion for novelty have long since had to keep silent before the accumulating evidence of clubs springing up (and staying up) in every state, national archery championships with hundreds of contestants, archery golf clubs, archery groups in nearly all

colleges and schools, official approval by leading: physical educationists, and such a growth of big-game hunting with the bow and arrow that one American state after another has had to set aside special game preserves for archersareas into which the man with the gun is forbidden to penetrate. ; The Maoris Had No Bows In New Zealand archery is also, of course, a revival. It is our latest sport, not our newest. For, although the Maoris were one of the very few races on the earth who never discovered the use of the bow, the fact that, to this day, one of the best-known spots in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens is known as the Archery Lawn is a reminder that the sport was brought to this country in the baggage of the pioneers. And paradoxically, though it was largely the invention of gunpowder that put the bowman into the discard as a fighting man, it is the present shortage of gunpowder for sporting purposes that has done a good deal to encourage the renaissance of his ancient weapon. Members of rifle clubs whose activities have béen curtailed by the war are finding that it takes just as straight an eye to put an arrow in the gold at 100 yards as it does to hit the bull at 50 with a rifle. In fact, it takes a lot more than a straight eye; it takes some physical strength and a nice calculation of air currents, as well as a good deal of walking to and from the target. And even in New Zealand more and more huntsmen are finding that the satisfaction of bringing down a deer or a pig with a .303 is more than equalled by that of stalking him and putting a hunting arrow into a part that counts. Or take the lowly rabbit: he’s a pretty small target at 30 yards, and there’s a lot of skill as well as a lot of sport in potting him with a feathered

shaft, even if he is a sitting shot. And since an arrow is silent, if you do miss one bunny you can move on with the pretty fair certainty of finding another one nibbling undisturbed just over the next rise. Romantic Boloney It is fitting that. archery in its revival in. New Zealand, Australia, America, and England should be associated to some extent with the revival of another almost equally ancient sport-that of swordplay. In Christchurch and Wellington, to name only two places, the new archery clubs have been fostered by the alreadyestablished fencing clubs. Apart from the sword and the fencing foil, the bow has probably had more romantic boloney written about it than any other instrument in the history of sport and war. Anybody who ventures into the open these days with a bow in his hand and a quiver on his shoulder must face the certainty of being addressed by the idle mob as " Robin Hood," or "Deerfoot," or " William Tell." But all the authorities agree that the merry men of Sherwood Forest and the American Indians would have hung their heads in shame when confronted

by the achievements of many presentday archers. And as for William Tell, he used a mechanical contrivance called a cross-bow which put him right outside the sporting vale. Pictures in the Paper Many of the public’s romantic misconceptions about archery-and particularly the belief that it is a gentle, la-di-da pastime-are probably gained from all those pretty pictures in the rotogravure sections of overseas magazines showing co-eds and Hollywood cuties who are more concerned to display their figures than their prowess with the bow. Archery is a sport for women-one of the few in which they can compete on almost equal terms with men-but a truer impression of its possibilities would be gained from pictures of such an archer as Stewart Edward White, who put an arrow clean through a charging African lion (and killed it), and of others who have successfully hunted the grizzly bear and the terrible African water-buffalo with bows and arrows; or from the statistical facts that in an ordinary York Round of target shooting, you would, with a bow of 50-pound weight (weight: pounds required to draw a 28-inch arrow to the head), be lifting the equivalent of more than three tons, and would walk to and from the target a total distance of nearly three miles! In the York Round, the archer fires 72 arrows at 100 yards, 48 arrows at 80 yards, and 24 arrows at 60 yards. As long ago as 1848 a bowman named Horace A. Ford shattered the Robin Hood myth by scoring 137 hits on the four-foot target out of his 144 arrows.

Most people think of archery only in terms of target shooting, and indeed that is its most popular form, and one which can be practised either on indoor or outdoor ranges. But, in addition, there is roving and snap-shooting, clout shoot-

ing (firing into the air on to a target flat on the ground), flight-shooting for distance, archery golf, and, of course, , hunting. Archery Golf The game of archery golf has developed greatly in America in the past 10 years or so, and in some States there are special archery golf clubs with their own courses but some elements of the game (particularly the roving element) date back long before the beginning of golf. In Wales and England it was once required of all soldiers as a part of their military training that they should spend several hours each day at the roving course (generally two or three miles in length), walking along shooting at targets at unknown distances. Under modern conditions a game between an archer and a golfer is usually a pretty even contest. They start from the tee together, the archer firing his second shaft from where the first lands, and counting the number of shots it takes him*to land an arrow in the cup in the same way as the golfer counts his strokes. A good flight arrow (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) will travel about the same distance as a golf ball off the tee, and probably with more accuracy; but on the putting-green the golfer has the advantagé, because the ultimate target is set down in the ground and offers only a flat oval to the archer’s line of vision. Arrows Half a Mile In flight shooting, the object is to send an arrow the- farthest possible distance, special light arrows being used. With an ordinary bow, the average archer is well satisfied if he manages between 250 and 300 yards. Until the present revival of the sport, the greatest recorded distance was that achieved by the Turk, Mahmoud Effendi, a giant of a man, who in the year 1795 shot an arrow with a Turkish horn bow a distance of 482 yards. But within recent years some archers have come close to the half-mile mark! Rival Schools of Bowmen People who still think of archery solely in terms of the long bow of stout English yew which won the Battles of Crécy and Agincourt are a good deal out of date. There are many archers who continue to swear by the good old English six-foot bow of yew or ash, and who can more than hold their own in the field with it; but these days they have to compete with the shorter flat bow-which is an American invention of hickory, osage or lemonwood-or perhaps even with the ultra-modern and diabolically power-

ful bow of spring steel. The argument between the English and American schools of bowmen will probably rage quite as long as the similar argument over Rugby scrum formations, but here in New Zealand anyway, though there are a few imported English long bows in use, the American influence is predominant. And the reason largely is that the American flat bow is easier to make. It is, in fact, now being produced locally in considerable quantity; and in performance and appearance, and especially cost, compares very favourably with the imported article. So long as there are strong trees growing and craftsmen to shape them, New Zealand bowmen should never lack equipment. A Superior Weapon In every way the weapon which modern science has put into the hands of to-day’s toxophilite (the long way of saying archer) is superior to that of his ancestor. Perfectly balanced, adjusted, and tested, it enables him to parallel and often surpass such fabulous feats as splitting the willow wand, transfixing the apple, or putting an arrow "clean through" a running buffalo-provided always, of course, that the man behind the bow is an expert with his weapon. And it enables him to do it with considerably less physical exertion and training. History records that the bowmen of old England commonly used 80pound bows, and in order to handle them had to train from childhood, standing for

hours at a stretch with a bowstave in o..2 hand and the other arm bent in the action of drawing an arrow to the head. Indeed it is asserted that it was this need for constant and intensive training as much as the invention of gunpowder which caused the bow to be abandoned as a weapon of war. In the days of the Spanish Armada a bow in the hands of a trained archer was still a more accurate, rapid, and deadly weapon than a gun; and as late as 1786 Benjamin Franklin was so impressed by the merits of the bow as compared with those of any existing type of firearm that he introduced a motion in the Pennsylvania Legislature to arm the state regiments with the 80-pound bow!

Its Killing Power If such a proposition came up to-day it would be enough to equip the troops with 35 or 40-pounders, by so much is the modern bow scientifically superior in range and killing power to its forerunners, The hunting arrow, carefully balanced and tipped with a razor-sharp barb two or three inches long, may not have the shocking power of a high-power rifle bullet, but hunters who have used it against big game claim that its killing power is just about as great. It has been

known to cut through the rib of a grizzly and bury itself to the feathers in the beast’s side; it has passed through the entire length of a running stag, cutting three ribs and protruding six. inches through the chest wall. And the barbed clothyard shaft is deadly to the full limit of its range; just as penetrating at 250 yards as at 10. As many a man-at-arms in the old days found to his sorrow, because of the iotary twist imparted to the barb by the feathers, an arrow wound, except in the fleshy part of an arm or leg, was practically always fatal. Except to the huntsman, however, such knowledge about the lethal capabilities of the bow is now mainly of academic interest. Though members of the N.Z.E.F. in Egypt have been photographed at the butts, though the Air Force boys are interested in the sport, though archery is used for recreational purposes at military hospitals in England, and though an archery club is reported to be forming at a Dunedin camp, no Benjamin Franklin is likely to arise in New Zealand and _ seriously advocate arming the Home Guard with bows and arrows. One catch would be that the Japanese, who take the game very seriously, have the reputation of being the world’s best archers!