Very informative and high-quality video! I was impressed by the Powhatan village when I visited it several years ago. I like the cuts to various angles during the shooting demonstration, too. Gives me good ideas for my own videos.
I like this video. It is informative and well made. I just have one point to add. I doubt that the Powhatan warriors put the arrows on the string in the way show. I believe they probably used a similar technique I learned when I started to learn Asian archery. The technique is to take the arrow shaft, put it on the bow shaft, hold the shaft with your bow hand to the shaft while you slide your arrow hand down the shaft until you find the nock. Hold the arrow by the nock and slide the arrow forward until you go past the string. Slide the arrow hand backwards putting the nock on the string and pull the string a little bit until you have some tension on the string. At that point in time, you put your arrow hand in the right position to pull the bow to full draw if you want to and stop holding the arrow to the bow shaft. - This technique is easier shown as descripted. - If you practice this move a 1000-times, you can do this without looking quite fast, like on a galloping horse passing by the target.
one the best videos on the subject, thanks for making it! the only thing that I would've liked to have seen is drawing past your ear, I think that was historically accurate for that time period, but I may be wrong, I'm no expert.
great video much love and respect to my native brothers and sisters, thats an awesome bow, if i had a choice between a bullet or a powhatan arrow, it would be the bullet, i wouldnt wanna get stuck with them arrows being propelled out of that powerful bow..
"Stone age people" is not an insult. The less technology you possess the more resourceful (smarter, sharper, fitter, more improvising) do you need to be to survive. The amazing skill and feats of athleticism from North American Native tribes are indicators of this.
Only the Powhatan are not a "stone age people". The Powhatan have copper; they place great social and religious importance on copper; the Powhatan have a developed trade network that brings their copper from the Great Lakes region. Not stone age -- the Powhatan are in a chalcolithic age.
@@Tuckahoe1918 Meanwhile when I find copper all I do with it is put 9 ingots together to make a block and then build with it. Though I wax it first since unlike iron copper can oxidize.
You mentioned that an English account notes Powhatan arrows piercing an English shield. Do you know what sort of shield that was? Wooden, steel, steel over a wooden core, etc.?
The particular quote comes from George Percy and his "Observations gathered out of a discourse of the plantation of the southern colony in Virginia by the English, 1606" as printed in Edward Haile's Jamestown Narratives -- "One of our gentlemen having a target which he trusted in, thinking it would bear out a flight-shot, he set it up against a tree, willing one of the savages to shoot; who took from his back an arrow of an ell long, drew it strongly in his bow, shoots the target a foot thorough or better, which was strange, being that a pistol could not pierce it. We, seeing the force of his bow, afterwards set him up a steel target; he shot again and burst his arrow all to pieces; he presently pulled out another arrow and bit it in his teeth, and seemed to be in a great rage, so he went away in great anger." The target that was pierced was most like the sort commonly made of wood and covered in leather.
@@charliebowen5071 it would give you an idea of historical draw weight. Tough wooden shields are meant to go up against English longbows, which can be from 80# to 200#.
@@robertfaucher3750 It really doesn't though because one how do you know that shield was designed to stop a warbow of that poundage, two modern tests on the topic show that English war bows will penetrate shields. th-cam.com/video/y6IlEUm_Eo4/w-d-xo.html The problem is we have no evidence of what the wooden shield is I don't know of any surviving wooden shield from that period in England that fit its description another reason I would be suspicious of its capability vs arrows is the English weren't utilising warbows in battle by this period and neither were any of their rival powers.
PROBABLY THE SCOTTISH SHIELDS BECAUSE EVEN UP TO 16 CENTURY THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDER STILL USED WOODEN SHIELDS PADDED WITH SHEEP WOOL AND LEATHER AND BRASS STUDS, AGAINST ATTACKING FORCE OF ENGLISH MUSKET SHOT. MODERN EXPERIMENT HAS SHOWN THAT THEY CAN STOP PISTOL SHOT AND MUSKET SHOT IF THEY TILT THAT SHIELD SLIGHTLY BEFORE CHARGING THE ENGLISH. THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDER STILL USED MEDIEVAL STYLE WAR TACTIC WHEN THEY FOUGHT THE ENGLISH DURING THIS ERA. THE WAY THE ENGLISH TREATED THE HIGHLANDERS IN SCOTLAND WERE NO DIFFERENT THEN HOW THEY TREATED THE NATIVE AMERICAN AND CALL THEM BOTH AS SAVAGES. @@deusvult5875
Hi Caleb, I would suggest looking for some of the books authored by Helen C. Rountree -- The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture Pocahontas's People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown And she also co-wrote a book with E. Randolph Turner III titled, Before and After Jamestown: Virginia's Powhatans and Their Predecessors. I hope that these are a good start for you. Please let us know if we can suggest any other books for you.
A lot of people are misguided of the effectiveness of bows and arrows by Hollywood. Typically when an arrow hits, it sticks out of the person. In reality, a pass through is common. As a bowhunter, I use a 45lb traditional bow to hunt whitetail deer. With a metal broadhead and wood shafts, I will get double lung penetrations all day. With a stone napped arrowhead, you might not get as much penetration due to the thickness (flint was very sharp) but if you're shooting something heavier than 45lbs then the effect will be similar.
That is a good question and I wish I had a definitive answer. There seems to be three prevailing opinions. The first is that the original native range of black locust was that of the Appalachian Mountains, along with what is now Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The second view is that the range stretched into eastern Virginia. And the third, is that black locust was transplanted so thoroughly to other areas, that it is difficult to know what was its original range. We are certainly happy to entertain a discussion.
@@jamesread1607 That's interesting, I wonder about the transplanting theory, if this did happen is it thought that it might have occurred in pre contact times by Native Americans, or would it have been more recently?
"Gets it's name and it's power from its length". Name yes, but not it's power. Bows power has nothing to do with bows length. Bows power comes from 3 things, Draw length, Draw weight from all that draw length, not only the max draw weight, some bows has higher early draw weight than others and lastly bows efficiency. Bows length does affect the maximum possible draw length, but it's not the only thing affecting that, it is possible with material and design choices to have a shorter bow that has longer draw length than a longer bow. So just by bows length alone, you cannot say that its more powerful if it's longer.
most likely they would have been using primary draw, witch is pinch draw with one or two fingers assisting from the string. but 3 finger draw was used by native Americans but not as common as primary draw. Note that records say that native americans (some not all, some used very short bows with short draw, but I'm talking about the longbow users) drew behind their ear, unlike this guy short drawing and releasing with very short draw.
The reason the arrow nocks are shallow is because eastern woodlands groups, like many other north American tribes, used a tertiary draw which is a pinch grip that uses three fingers as well, not the 3-finger draw shown here. Tertiary draw means you can much more easily keep the nock engaged on the string. I feel like this is a basic thing you should know if you're representing historical archery for a museum. here's a good example: th-cam.com/video/uza0Kw8pLEQ/w-d-xo.html
There is very little in terms of traditional Eastern Woodlands archery equipment and technique that survives. What survives is the tiniest fragment and does not provide enough to say that all of the archers of an entire region would have drawn their bows this one exact way, in fact that is rare to see much of anywhere. Across hundreds of tribes with different languages and cultures the idea that they would all do one thing the exact same way is simply not supported. Also heavier bow weights supported by colonial accounts, recreations and passed down archery tradition does not always allow for such draws without the aid of a thumb ring. To better illustrate here are two videos you can reference of modern traditional Cherokee bowmakers using the three-finger draw. th-cam.com/video/ACEmMhBZQj0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=i6sLCzdBuVTQUQkU th-cam.com/video/AjDGzdW6AxI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=7HoqWlhOchuHiAc-
@@JYFMuseums Modern archers in Papua New Guinea use the tertiary pinch grip unaided with 80-90 pound bows. If I wasn't clear, it's a finger release that uses 3 fingers to draw the bow but a pinch on the string with the thumb in order to give the arrow greater support. It's quite a useful draw for high poundage because because it gives a lot of surface contact with the string, distributing the force even more than a 3-finger draw. And thumb rings are for thumb release, not the tertiary pinch grip. Secondary and tertiary pinch grips like these are common with shallow and bulbous nocks, like the ones used in the eastern woodlands, and in fact with shallow, bulbous, or non-existent nocks all over the world. It's actually not rare to see that archers from the same cultural and historical tradition would draw their bows in a consistent way. European and Mediterranean archers drew their bows with a 3-finger grip from the Roman period to the present. The thumb draw is widespread from Turkey to Japan across Asia. And tertiary and secondary draws were quite widespread across the Americas including the eastern woodlands, which are attested in historical and ethnographic records. heres some info: www.archerylibrary.com/books/morse/ancient-and-modern-methods-of-arrow-release/docs/notes03.html
Here at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation we have staff from different and diverse backgrounds. Indigenous people are from all over the continent and do not all look the same. Please keep in mind how harmful it can be for our Native staff, who have dedicated their lives to telling the story of the Powhatan people in Tsenacommacah, to see their culture and identity questioned. We expect staff and visitors alike to treat one another with respect regarding their culture and histories, so please keep this in mind when commenting.
4:33 Deer, bear, wolves a mountain lions, people you don't like, stuff like that...
Loved it!
Very good man, I am Sioux (Nakota) and we used bows with a minimum of yea 40-45 ibs.
Very informative and high-quality video! I was impressed by the Powhatan village when I visited it several years ago. I like the cuts to various angles during the shooting demonstration, too. Gives me good ideas for my own videos.
Excellent information from a real archer!
This guy has the best job in the world
Russel, you are a wealth knowledge. Great discussion
Yes he is. Thank you!
Very good and informative video!
I like this video. It is informative and well made. I just have one point to add. I doubt that the Powhatan warriors put the arrows on the string in the way show. I believe they probably used a similar technique I learned when I started to learn Asian archery. The technique is to take the arrow shaft, put it on the bow shaft, hold the shaft with your bow hand to the shaft while you slide your arrow hand down the shaft until you find the nock. Hold the arrow by the nock and slide the arrow forward until you go past the string. Slide the arrow hand backwards putting the nock on the string and pull the string a little bit until you have some tension on the string. At that point in time, you put your arrow hand in the right position to pull the bow to full draw if you want to and stop holding the arrow to the bow shaft. - This technique is easier shown as descripted. - If you practice this move a 1000-times, you can do this without looking quite fast, like on a galloping horse passing by the target.
one the best videos on the subject, thanks for making it!
the only thing that I would've liked to have seen is drawing past your ear, I think that was historically accurate for that time period, but I may be wrong, I'm no expert.
great video much love and respect to my native brothers and sisters, thats an awesome bow, if i had a choice between a bullet or a powhatan arrow, it would be the bullet, i wouldnt wanna get stuck with them arrows being propelled out of that powerful bow..
"Stone age people" is not an insult. The less technology you possess the more resourceful (smarter, sharper, fitter, more improvising) do you need to be to survive. The amazing skill and feats of athleticism from North American Native tribes are indicators of this.
Only the Powhatan are not a "stone age people". The Powhatan have copper; they place great social and religious importance on copper; the Powhatan have a developed trade network that brings their copper from the Great Lakes region. Not stone age -- the Powhatan are in a chalcolithic age.
@@Tuckahoe1918 Meanwhile when I find copper all I do with it is put 9 ingots together to make a block and then build with it. Though I wax it first since unlike iron copper can oxidize.
This is really cool.
You mentioned that an English account notes Powhatan arrows piercing an English shield. Do you know what sort of shield that was? Wooden, steel, steel over a wooden core, etc.?
The particular quote comes from George Percy and his "Observations gathered out of a discourse of the plantation of the southern colony in Virginia by the English, 1606" as printed in Edward Haile's Jamestown Narratives --
"One of our gentlemen having a target which he trusted in, thinking it would bear out a flight-shot, he set it up against a tree, willing one of the savages to shoot; who took from his back an arrow of an ell long, drew it strongly in his bow, shoots the target a foot thorough or better, which was strange, being that a pistol could not pierce it. We, seeing the force of his bow, afterwards set him up a steel target; he shot again and burst his arrow all to pieces; he presently pulled out another arrow and bit it in his teeth, and seemed to be in a great rage, so he went away in great anger."
The target that was pierced was most like the sort commonly made of wood and covered in leather.
Why? What a bizarre question….
@@charliebowen5071 it would give you an idea of historical draw weight. Tough wooden shields are meant to go up against English longbows, which can be from 80# to 200#.
@@robertfaucher3750 It really doesn't though because one how do you know that shield was designed to stop a warbow of that poundage, two modern tests on the topic show that English war bows will penetrate shields. th-cam.com/video/y6IlEUm_Eo4/w-d-xo.html The problem is we have no evidence of what the wooden shield is I don't know of any surviving wooden shield from that period in England that fit its description another reason I would be suspicious of its capability vs arrows is the English weren't utilising warbows in battle by this period and neither were any of their rival powers.
PROBABLY THE SCOTTISH SHIELDS BECAUSE EVEN UP TO 16 CENTURY THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDER STILL USED WOODEN SHIELDS PADDED WITH SHEEP WOOL AND LEATHER AND BRASS STUDS, AGAINST ATTACKING FORCE OF ENGLISH MUSKET SHOT. MODERN EXPERIMENT HAS SHOWN THAT THEY CAN STOP PISTOL SHOT AND MUSKET SHOT IF THEY TILT THAT SHIELD SLIGHTLY BEFORE CHARGING THE ENGLISH. THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDER STILL USED MEDIEVAL STYLE WAR TACTIC WHEN THEY FOUGHT THE ENGLISH DURING THIS ERA. THE WAY THE ENGLISH TREATED THE HIGHLANDERS IN SCOTLAND WERE NO DIFFERENT THEN HOW THEY TREATED THE NATIVE AMERICAN AND CALL THEM BOTH AS SAVAGES. @@deusvult5875
This was a very interesting video. Do y'all have any book recommendations about the Powhatans during this time period?
Hi Caleb, I would suggest looking for some of the books authored by Helen C. Rountree --
The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture
Pocahontas's People: The Powhatan Indians of Virginia Through Four Centuries
Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown
And she also co-wrote a book with E. Randolph Turner III titled, Before and After Jamestown: Virginia's Powhatans and Their Predecessors.
I hope that these are a good start for you. Please let us know if we can suggest any other books for you.
@@jamesread1607 Thank you for the Recommendations. I will make sure to check these out as soon as I can.
A lot of people are misguided of the effectiveness of bows and arrows by Hollywood. Typically when an arrow hits, it sticks out of the person. In reality, a pass through is common. As a bowhunter, I use a 45lb traditional bow to hunt whitetail deer. With a metal broadhead and wood shafts, I will get double lung penetrations all day. With a stone napped arrowhead, you might not get as much penetration due to the thickness (flint was very sharp) but if you're shooting something heavier than 45lbs then the effect will be similar.
Great 👌
Bears, Wolves, Lions...people you don't like 😅💪
Why he doesn't draw the bow all the way? Or has that particular bow a shorter draw length?
Probably museum exposition pieces. Dont want to stress them too much or put them at risk.
Does black locust grow naturally that far east or was it traded from more inland Native groups?
That is a good question and I wish I had a definitive answer. There seems to be three prevailing opinions. The first is that the original native range of black locust was that of the Appalachian Mountains, along with what is now Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The second view is that the range stretched into eastern Virginia. And the third, is that black locust was transplanted so thoroughly to other areas, that it is difficult to know what was its original range.
We are certainly happy to entertain a discussion.
@@jamesread1607 That's interesting, I wonder about the transplanting theory, if this did happen is it thought that it might have occurred in pre contact times by Native Americans, or would it have been more recently?
the skills of the hadza tribes in modern times legitimizes many of these old accounts of the native americans
"Gets it's name and it's power from its length".
Name yes, but not it's power. Bows power has nothing to do with bows length. Bows power comes from 3 things, Draw length, Draw weight from all that draw length, not only the max draw weight, some bows has higher early draw weight than others and lastly bows efficiency.
Bows length does affect the maximum possible draw length, but it's not the only thing affecting that, it is possible with material and design choices to have a shorter bow that has longer draw length than a longer bow. So just by bows length alone, you cannot say that its more powerful if it's longer.
using a English draw? do you know any native draw? wji yo? 8nda wligen wji na t8mbi
Does anybody know what kind of wood was used for the arrows shaft? Or was it cane?
i have a book on native bows and arrows. the north eastern natives would often split logs and make arrows from hickory
@@Soviless99 Thank you, it must have been hard and lengthy work without special tools
@@gigizack hell yea. i know making arrows from many prepared materials is a involved process in itself
gigizack -- though other materials could be used generally Powhatan arrows were made from river cane. And Russell's arrows are made of cane as well.
@@jamesread1607 Thanks James, any information about the use of dogwood?
Interesting! Did they really shot this way? I mean split fingers draw and arrow on the left side of the bow like modern archers shoot?
most likely they would have been using primary draw, witch is pinch draw with one or two fingers assisting from the string. but 3 finger draw was used by native Americans but not as common as primary draw.
Note that records say that native americans (some not all, some used very short bows with short draw, but I'm talking about the longbow users) drew behind their ear, unlike this guy short drawing and releasing with very short draw.
@@jkre they didn't draw a bow behind their ears.
The reason the arrow nocks are shallow is because eastern woodlands groups, like many other north American tribes, used a tertiary draw which is a pinch grip that uses three fingers as well, not the 3-finger draw shown here. Tertiary draw means you can much more easily keep the nock engaged on the string. I feel like this is a basic thing you should know if you're representing historical archery for a museum.
here's a good example: th-cam.com/video/uza0Kw8pLEQ/w-d-xo.html
There is very little in terms of traditional Eastern Woodlands archery equipment and technique that survives. What survives is the tiniest fragment and does not provide enough to say that all of the archers of an entire region would have drawn their bows this one exact way, in fact that is rare to see much of anywhere. Across hundreds of tribes with different languages and cultures the idea that they would all do one thing the exact same way is simply not supported. Also heavier bow weights supported by colonial accounts, recreations and passed down archery tradition does not always allow for such draws without the aid of a thumb ring. To better illustrate here are two videos you can reference of modern traditional Cherokee bowmakers using the three-finger draw.
th-cam.com/video/ACEmMhBZQj0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=i6sLCzdBuVTQUQkU
th-cam.com/video/AjDGzdW6AxI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=7HoqWlhOchuHiAc-
@@JYFMuseums Modern archers in Papua New Guinea use the tertiary pinch grip unaided with 80-90 pound bows. If I wasn't clear, it's a finger release that uses 3 fingers to draw the bow but a pinch on the string with the thumb in order to give the arrow greater support. It's quite a useful draw for high poundage because because it gives a lot of surface contact with the string, distributing the force even more than a 3-finger draw. And thumb rings are for thumb release, not the tertiary pinch grip.
Secondary and tertiary pinch grips like these are common with shallow and bulbous nocks, like the ones used in the eastern woodlands, and in fact with shallow, bulbous, or non-existent nocks all over the world.
It's actually not rare to see that archers from the same cultural and historical tradition would draw their bows in a consistent way. European and Mediterranean archers drew their bows with a 3-finger grip from the Roman period to the present. The thumb draw is widespread from Turkey to Japan across Asia. And tertiary and secondary draws were quite widespread across the Americas including the eastern woodlands, which are attested in historical and ethnographic records.
heres some info: www.archerylibrary.com/books/morse/ancient-and-modern-methods-of-arrow-release/docs/notes03.html
Please buy some microphones.
Very good video.....except that you shoot a bow like an Englishman.
But he white and making money off this
Here at the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation we have staff from different and diverse backgrounds. Indigenous people are from all over the continent and do not all look the same. Please keep in mind how harmful it can be for our Native staff, who have dedicated their lives to telling the story of the Powhatan people in Tsenacommacah, to see their culture and identity questioned. We expect staff and visitors alike to treat one another with respect regarding their culture and histories, so please keep this in mind when commenting.