African Poison arrows and quiver

[fearn]

Three tid-bits I'd offer:

1. The word "toxic" in English has the same root as "Taxus" (the genus of the yew tree). Yews can be used to make bows, and "toxikon" was a poison used on arrows--possibly from yews, possibly not. Arrow poisons are old in Europe, but they seem to have fallen out of favor around the time of the Roman Empire.

2. There is a three-volume set of books titled The Traditional Bowyer's Bible that discusses various aspects of African archery. There was substantial variation in archery technology across the technology, and there is one anecdote of an east african hunter whose normal hunting bow was as good as the competition bow that a white hunter had brought along to practice with. So some African bows were probably as good as any wooden bow in the world, and others were weak, and depended on arrow poisons for efficacy.

3. It's always worth watching The Gods Must be Crazy again. If you've seen it, you know which sequence I'm talking about. The !Kung-San poison(ed) their arrows.

F