Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

aiontay · 30th January 2010, 05:38 PM

In my surfing of the Internet I ran across this dissertation on the Apaches and the following quote from it:
http://www.library.unt.edu/theses/op...ssertation.pdf

"War parties armed themselves with bows and arrows, lances, war clubs, leather shields, iron darts (known as chuzas), and sometimes leather body armor for both rider and mount."

It is pretty well established that early on Indians on the Plains copied Spanish practices, such as use of lances and armor for riders and horse, although multi-layered leather armor for men probably pre-dated the Spanish. My question is, is the use of chuzas, the iron darts, also Spanish? Obviously, iron darts don't pre-date the Spanish, and there is a long history of iron javelins being used in Spain going back to Hannibal and earlier. Is it possible that javelins were still being used at the start of Spanish colonization and that they continued to be used up until the 1600s, when the Apaches could have adopted them?

30th January 2010, 05:38 PM	#1
aiontay Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 88	Spanish javelins in the New World? In my surfing of the Internet I ran across this dissertation on the Apaches and the following quote from it: http://www.library.unt.edu/theses/op...ssertation.pdf "War parties armed themselves with bows and arrows, lances, war clubs, leather shields, iron darts (known as chuzas), and sometimes leather body armor for both rider and mount." It is pretty well established that early on Indians on the Plains copied Spanish practices, such as use of lances and armor for riders and horse, although multi-layered leather armor for men probably pre-dated the Spanish. My question is, is the use of chuzas, the iron darts, also Spanish? Obviously, iron darts don't pre-date the Spanish, and there is a long history of iron javelins being used in Spain going back to Hannibal and earlier. Is it possible that javelins were still being used at the start of Spanish colonization and that they continued to be used up until the 1600s, when the Apaches could have adopted them?