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Sinew-Backed Elk Antler Bow On February 8, 1805, during the expedition's winter at Fort Mandan, Black Cat, a Mandan chief, presented a bow to Captain Lewis. The bow, along with a collection of arrows, was included in the inventory of objects sent to Jefferson the following spring, but was not described in detail. This bow was accessioned by the Peabody Museum as an "elk horn" bow collected by Lewis and Clark. In their journals, the explorers noted that bows made from Rocky Mountain sheep horn and elk antler were highly prized among the tribes of the Plains and Plateau areas. Following the expedition, William Clark displayed several sinew-backed "elk horn" bows in his St. Louis museum and council chamber. Thirty years after the Lewis and Clark expedition, the artist George Catlin also observed the use of horn and antler bows and noted their value, which derived in part from ceremonial, rather than utilitarian use. Only a handful of such bows survive in museum collections, and the use of elk antler as bow material has been questioned by some scholars and replicators of Plains material. Recent analysis of this piece confirms that it was made from a very large elk antler. Bows such as this may represent a type having great antiquity in North America. The sinew backing is thicker than the actual antler. Wolf Chief, a Hidatsa born in the mid-nineteenth century, told ethnographer Gilbert Wilson that : We thought elk horn bows were very beautiful...Elk horn bows were ornamental, rather than useful. We use them for parade, not for real work...They were made for show, and to hold a man's honor marks. Wolf Chief's father, Small Ankle, made such a bow in about two weeks, using shed elk antlers found in the Little Missouri bandlands. |
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Native American Objects and the American Quest for Commerce and Science Peabody Museum of Archaeology and
Ethnology, Harvard University |
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