Alutiiq bows

I have recently been working intensively with Alutiiq bows and archery tackle. I have so far made two replicas of  the TAV13 Aluutiq bow in the Furuhjelm collection. I have also made a replica of a painted bow, the original was collected by Hermann von Friederici from Kodiak between 1803-1806 and is in the collections of the Ajaloo Museum in Tallinn, Estonia. These apparently different types of bows have been attributed to the Alutiiq, and in some cases, Russian scholars have claimed that the painted bows are of Unangan (Aleut) origin. 

1. Detail on the original bow collected by von Friederici in the Ajaloo museum. 

These bows represent two different types. The larger painted bow, which can be referred as the "Katmai"  type, requires more carving than the Alutiiq bow which is rounded and has less surface-area than the first type.

2. The replica and 30 meters of twisted sinew string.

The original Ajaloo bow is 146cm in long, the replica is slightly longer, it measures 150 cm. The replica is made out of larch, which is the only native hardwood in Alaska. The cable backing is made up by 30 meters of twined sinew string which goes from one end to the other.

3. The TAV13 bow and the Douglas Pine replica.

The TAV13 bow was collected in the late 1850s by Hjalmar Furuhjelm. The bow originated from Nutchek village in Prince William Sound. The replicas are made of Douglas Pine and Ash. Ash was however never used as a bow wood by Alutiiq but I decided to make a compromise in order to have a practical test version of the bow. 

Both replicas and the original bow are 132 cm long. The backing is made up by 16 strands of plaited sinew, about 20 meters in all.  Moose leg-sinews have been used to make the cables on all three replicas

4. Both bows strung,

The design of the bows is very different, however both bows store a chocking amount of energy. The Alutiiq bow stacks quickly and reaches 60 pounds at a 24 inch draw. The Katmai bow is very stiff and I have been careful not to strain the limbs to much before the wood has had time to set. Currently the bow exceeds the 60 pound marker at 20 inches and it has not yet been drawn beyond that point.

5. Handle sections.

This process has yielded much new information about the Alutiiq bow making process and these discoveries will be in detail discussed in the ”Alutiiq bowery” - article I plan to publish in 2013.

6. Side by side view of the bow bellies.

I still have to make some plaited sinew string for these three replicas before they can be considered as ready.

7. Detail of the sinew binding at the ends of the bows.

Links:

http://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee

Sources:

Beyond Bering. The Russian Colonies in the North Pacific 1741-1867. From the Estonian History Museum in collaboration with the Staatliches Museum für Volkerkunde Munich.

Jean-Loup Rousselot, Veronica Grahammer. Fondazione Galleria Gottardo 2004, 263 pp, ill [In Italian, Germany and English]

Photo credits:

1-7 Marcus Lepola 2012.

Replicating Eskimo Bow Technology – Is close enough good enough?

The Eskimo inhabit a wast range of the northern hemisphere. The arctic environment and the limited availability of natural resources influenced the material culture of the Eskimo. The kayak is a good example of how local availability of material for construction, together with the special functions of the kayak influenced the design of the craft. The same rules also apply to the bow and arrow.

The bow is not an "stand alone item" in the toolkit of the Eskimo, it is a narration of the environment and the particular culture from which it emerged. As anthropologists we have to be very conscientious about how we treat and present this narrative. It is our obligation not to disturb or change the narrative as it will only result in a dilution of the traditions we are trying to salvage.

As I have been preparing for my coming ”Alutiiq bowyery” trip to Alaska next summer, I have also been looking at number of written sources on Eskimo bow replication. There are not that many of them, but the name Errett Callahan keeps popping up in my browser. Dr. Errett Callahan is an renowned anthropologist/primitive technology specialist. In the late 1980s he was engaged in a project to teach the Inuit of Belcher Island traditional skills such as arctic bow making. Callahan's assignment was to recreate a bow similar to what had been used during the heyday of Arctic bow hunting and to later use the recreated bow in a actual caribou hunt. The project was published in three different articles in Primitive Technology II, Ancestral Skills 2001.

The bow Callahan replicated, a bow from Bristol Bay (plate 2 Murdoc).

As such the project is interesting and the finished bow along with detailed sketches produced a lot of practical information on Eskimo bow-technology. But there are also some issues with this project which need to be discussed in retrospect. Even if the project involved Canadian Inuit, Callahan focused on western Eskimo bows due to reasons of practicality, and thus ignoring the East Arctic bows all together. In his article he admits to cutting corners and in order to make a bow type he felt more comfortable re-producing, in this case a Yup´ík bow from Bristol Bay.

Is this a big deal? Yes, in my opinion, since going about projects in this careless manner is a distortion of bow making traditions that the anthropologist is trying to preserve in an given area. The bow Callahan replicated really has no similarities to bows in the Baffin Island area. The cable backing technique reproduced by Callahan is of the Southern Type (Murdoc 1890). This type of backing is different from the Arctic Type (Murdoc 1890) used in the East Arctic. Bows from this area were typically made out of antler which means that they had to be put together of several different pieces. The bow that Callahan reproduced was originally made out of one piece of spruce or larch (not ash). The Yup´ik of Alaska had better access to driftwood than the Inuit of the central Canadian Arctic and could more easily recover suitable material for bows. Driftwood was scarce in the Baffin Island area and this fact posed a large problem for the Inuit bowyers. If wood was ever found these pieces were often brittle and of poor quality, so antler was commonly employed for bow-building. The Southern Type backing is not suited for making several piece bows. However the more elaborate Arctic type backing is perfectly adapted for piecing together bows from several pieces.

This is how bows from the Baffin Island area look like. (fig 1, Birket-Smith 1918)

Any anthropologist researching and sharing knowledge on traditional skills should be mindful to the original narrative of the cultural area he is working with. This approach provides real possibilities for native elders and young people to interact with their environment in the same way as their ancestors did. Buying wood such as ash for bows from the local lumber store is only a half-way marker, it´s a good start but it should not be the ultimate goal. The risk is also that people are willing to settle for a ”lesser” version because the ”real-deal” is so much more difficult to make and probably performs less well than a top-of-the-line lumberyard bow.

A lot of hidden knowledge is being overlooked this way and perhaps even lost when choosing not to make the extra effort and going all the way with challenging reconstructions.

Cook Inlet sea-otter arrow, this type of arrows where only used for marine hunting.Mason 1894, plate LIX.

Another issue that I think is a bit problematic with the Callahan project was the two sets of arrows that he made to go along with the Yup'ík bow. One of these sets are replicas of Cook inlet arrows intended for caribou hunting. Callahan has been inspired by the sea-otter arrows from Cook inlet area and presents his own versions of these as replicas. These are in fact not replicas at all as these type of arrows which Callahan ”replicated” with obsidian points do not exist in any museum collections. This type of arrows with rounded bulbous nocks and high fletching were exclusively used for hunting sea otters or water foul from kayaks. The arrows used for land mammal hunting in the same Cook inlet area are of a entirely different type. In this case Callahan should have made it clear that these arrows are a distortion of the original and have no real scientific value as such.

It is important to be clear on when a project is more about "primitivist" experimentation than the reproduction of real ethnographic artifacts.  

Alutiiq bow in the Furuhjelm collection and the replica. Photo Marcus Lepola.

Further reading:

Birket-Smith, Kaj 1918. The Greenland bow. Meddelelser om Grönland p 1-28. Bianco Lunds bogtryggeri, Köpenhavn.

Callahan, Errett 2001. Archery in the Arctic 1-3. Primitive Technology II – Ancestral Skills, p. 119-133. From the Society of Primitive Technology, ed. David Westcott. Gibbs & Smith Publisher, Salt Lake City.

Mason, Otis Tufton 1894. North American Bows, Arrows and Quivers. The Smithsonian Report for 1893, pages 631-679. Government Printing Office, Washington.

Murdoc, John 1890. A study of the Eskimo bows in the U.S. National Museum.From the Report of the Smithsonian Institution 1883-84 part II, pages 307-316, I-XII. Government Printing Office, Washington.  

Alaskan eskimo bows

As I have been busy with work and research I have been unable to update my blog for a while. I have been involved in the intensive study of a small collection of native artifacts from Alaska. This collection is previously unknown and the catalog as well as the result of the study will appear in print at some time, hopefully as early as in 2012.

This collection also includes a number of bows and arrows. I have been able to carefully study these artefacts in great detail and as such learned some new and interesting facts about native Alaskan bowyery. This study also includes making a few working replicas of the bows and arrows as it is also very important to learn how exactly these bows were made and used.

There have been a number of studies made on Eskimo bowyery, some scholars have even made actual replicas of eskimo-bows. Very few, if any of these have used the same inferior softwoods as the original eskimo bowyers, often substituting Black Spruce, Douglas Fir and Tamarack with less tempered woods such as Ash and Yew. Although Yew has been used for bow-manufacture in southwestern Alaska, many bows have also been made using more inferior species of wood.

Original and replica of a Southwest-Alaskan bow.

The challenge is to make working replicas of these Alaskan bows using the same inferior bow woods as the original bowyers used and in the process perhaps rediscover the craft and skills of the Alaskan bowyers.

AMNH Object: TRAP, MOUSE [ 1 / 4889]

I just made an interesting discovery while browing throught the online collections of the American Museum of Natural History. I was looking for an interesting Tlingit-mousetrap I found a sketch of in Emmons & De Laguna; The Tlingit Indians. The trap illustrated in the book was identical to the Finnish mousetrap in my blog. I happened to stumble across the exact same trap among the Ojibwa? As the trap is from the Midwest, chanses are some Finnish immigrants introduced the model to local Native Americans.
This is a very interesting discovery since it suggests that Finns and Native Americans exchange traditional knowledge among each other in two different locations on the North American continent.  I will research this issue further as soon as possible. Compare this to the one I posted earlier; Northern Wilderness Skills and Traditions: Old Finnish Mouse Traps:

AMNH Object: TRAP, MOUSE [ 1 / 4889]

Siberian Hanti skis part 2

As the skis were done the next step was to proceed with the bindings. The bindings on the model skis were interesting, In most Siberian skis the binding is made out of leather thong, but in this case a loop made out of a twig or a brach is jammed in to the two holes on the opposite sides at the "päläs".

Image 1. Two different types of bindings for a flat "päläs".

The ski has to be balanced correctly, which in this case means that the rear has to be slightly heavier that the front of the ski. I drilled the holes at the mid-section of the ski, balance has to be adjusted by removing wood until both skis are identically balanced. 

Image 2. A fresh juniper branch is driven through the holes in the ski-board

 .

 

In order for the stick/twig loop to hold two things have to be taken in to account: 1. The holes have to be drilled in an angle away from each other so that the loop will hinge correctly. 2. The stick/twig has to be inserted when it is fresh or when it has been heated and left to dry for a day or two before it is jammed in and trimmed.

Image 3. The finished skis.

 
As the loops had dried and been fitted I added the bindings, two strips of brain-tanned moose hide. I also rubbed the skis with seal oil. The finished skis weighted 1,5kg a piece. Their measurements; max. thickness 1.8 cm., lenght 160 cm and max. width 16.3cm.

Image 4. The Hanti skis to the left.

Photo / Image Credits

Image 1 Istoriko-etnograficeski atlas Sibiri 1966.  

Image 2-4 Marcus Lepola

Siberian Hanti skis part 1

This winter has been extreme, cold Siberian and Arctic winds have been blowing across Finland and partly because of this I have been inspired to explore the ways of our language-relatives in Russia.

I have been planning to make a pair of snowshoes but I realized that I could instead replicate the next best thing;  - a simple pair of Siberian skis. The Siberian skis represent a very archaic form of skis. The Siberian ski-type is spread across a wide territory from the Western slopes of the Ural mountains to the Kamtchatkan Peninsula in the East. The ski-type and is very distinct as it it shorter and broader than skies used in the Nordic countries. Skis of this type have a very flat, boardlike appearance.

These type of skis are made to enable winter-travel in the thick powdery snow of the Siberian taiga. These skies are more for walking than for gliding. They are in fact more like snowshoes than skis. 

Even if the Siberian skies appear very similar at first glance there are many differences in construction among the Siberian peoples. There are variations in the shape of the ski and the width-lengt proportions. There are also differences in how the footing surface on the skis are constructed, in Finnish this part of the ski is called päläs and there are three different type of päläs. The footing or päläs can be flat, raised or it can be formed as an channel for the foot. 

Image 1. From the left; a Hanti ski with a raised päläs, a Komi ski with a channel päläs and a Hanti ski with a flat päläs.

The Siberian skis are often fitted with fur on the bottom of the ski. The skin is attached on the running surface of the ski so that the hair points backwards. The most typically used skin was the legskin of reindeer as the skin is though and the short hairs provide traction when climbing hills but glide effortlessly forward. Sealskin was also used by coastal dwellers. 

It is interesting to note that the same type of short broad skis were used in Finland and Scandinavia during the neolithic and the bronze-age. There are several finds of skis in bogs and these resemble the Siberian types. 

Image 2. The Kalvträsk skis and ski-staff.

There is also some drama in connection to the prehistoric skis found in the Nordic bogs as there is some debate conserning which country can claim to own the oldest ski in the world. Three men digging a ditch in a bog near Kalvträsk in Västerbotten, Sweden in 1924 discovered two 15cm wide and 204 cm long skis along with a skipole. Later C-14 dating of this find confirmed the age to 5200 BP (before 1950). In Northern Finland, some 10 km from Saija, Jaska Repo, a farmer diggin a ditch in a bog called Särkiaapa in 1938 unearthed a broken ski. The ski is estimated to have been 15cm wide and max. 180 cm long. The ski from Särkiaapa was also C-14 dated to 5200 BP. So both findings date back to 3200 B.C. Sadly for the Finns a second c-14 dating of the Särkiaapa ski resulted in 4470 +/- 110 BP, so it appears that the Swedes won this time!

Image 3. The Särkiaapa ski from Salla, Finland.

Although inspired by all this I was in a hurry to finish a serviceable pair of skis in matter of only a week so I decided against making a copy of some archeological find and to go for a fairly simple model with a flat päläs-design to reduce carving-time. 

Image 4. A pair of hanti skis design for use on crusted snow.

I found a photo of a Hanti ski that seemed easy enough to make. I pretty much had to guess the lenght of the ski since the book in which the ski was sketched did not provide any exact measurements. This type of ski should perform best in spring when the sun melts the surface of the snow and it freezes to a crust during cold nights. This would suit me perfectly as it is already March and winter will only last for a few more weeks in southern Finland. 

Image 5. One ski is cut out from the spruce board.

I picked up some wide spruce boards at the local lumberyard (thanks Edgar!). The wood was not perfect as there were several knots in the boards. I managed to carve the skis so that there is a knot in the middle of the tip on both skis. This should prevent the tip from cracking as spruce is prone to crack easily.

Image 6. Bending the steamed tip.

The bottom, or the running side of the ski was carved flat and the top convex. I slightly stream-bent the tips after first soaking them in water for a couple of days. The skis are now almost finished, I still have to fit them with some bindings and also apply some animal fat on the wood before I can try them out.

Image 7. The small crack in the tips have not advanced beyond the knothole.

Photo / Image Credits

Image 1. Suksen tarina, Eino Nikkilä 1966.

Image 2. The Museum of Västerbotten

Image 3. National Board of Antiquities, Finland.

Image 5-7 Marcus Lepola.

Further readings

http://skefo.skelleftea.org/kalvtr%E4skskidan.htm

http://personal.inet.fi/koti/kari.saariniemi/historiikki2.html

http://www.helsinki.fi/hum/arla/esineisto_kivikausi/liikkuminen/sukset/frameset_sukset.htm

Lessons learned during the “Tour de Ski” at Kurjenrahka

Image 1. "New" skis versus old skis. Would the old skis manage to hold their own against more modern equipment?

Decided to take my "new" ski poles and my old 3 meter skis on a small tour. I headed out with Patrik Berghäll, a wilderness-instructor for the Folkhälsan Association in Finland. 

Image 2. "Traditional" ski pole roof rack.

We drove to Kurjerahka, a beautiful wilderness area just North of Turku. Kurjenrahaka. This area looks like most of Finland used to look like before the moors where drained for fields and forestry. We still have a lot of moors left, but approx. ½ of all the moors in Finland have been destroyed over the last 100 years. 

Image 3. The first time these skis have been worn for god knows how many decades.

What also makes this area interesting is that wolves have returned to the scene. Finding wolf tracks in here is fairly common these days. We saw no wolves this time but got to enjoy some beautiful scenery and sunny skies. Clouds rolled in after midday and we found ourselves in the midst of a thick snowfall as we returned to our car. 

Image 4. The ski trail across the beautiful Kurjenrahka high-moor. 

We started of skiing on a frozen crust of snow and it was easy travelling as the skis kept us from piercing through the crust. I however managed to break both staves as I tried to negotiate a sharp turn on a wooden bridge that led to the ski trail. The breaks where not catastrophic as bot of the poles broke at the ends and it was the antler tips that broke of. Only one of the poles needed some additional mending during our stop at the fireplace.

Image 5. Easy going.

The old skis were surprisingly smooth and easy to use, even if I couldn't use my other ski stave to it´s full potential until I had a chance to mend it. I also tied a hemp cord around my heals and the skin thong bindings to prevent my foot from slipping loose. However the it was warm enough for the snow to melt on the cord and I had to re-tie the cord a couple of times during the trek.

Image 6. A old "kammi" with a partially collapsed roof.

We came across some surprises during our trek to the camp-site such as an old "kammi", a small semi-subterranean cottage used by hunters and wood cutters. We also came across an old "kota" frame in the woods.

Image 7. Old kota frame.

We made a stop for coffee, sausages and  tasty pea-soup at the camp-site which happened to be fairly close to the "kammi". It started to snow as we were making our way back to the car. I had only applied tar to my skis and the sudden rise in temperature made the wet snow stick to the running surface. Luckily we only had about 1 km left to the parking when the ski tour began to feel as a real struggle.

Image 8. Wet snow.

Wet snow conditions are traditionally considered as the worst possible conditions for traditional wood skis. In Finnish this particular circumstance is called "takkala".

Image 9. Heavy going, 3 cm thick snow stuck to the running surface of the skis. Feels like wearing very heavy shoes with high heals. 

I suddenly found myself thinking about my mother. She was born in 1948 in Ostrobothnia and during winter she, along with her sisters and the boys of the village, had to ski for some 3 km across a moor, fields and two forested hills to reach the elementary school in another village. She had told me about how tired and cold she used to be as she struggled to get to school during  the dark hours of the morning. She had to use old worn down wooden skis. She also told me of how hard it was when it was warm and the snow clung to the bottom of the skis and travelling was almost impossible. I really felt for her as I found myself in the same situation, I however am an adult male, she was only a seven-year old girl. Life was hard. I am grateful that my seven year old daughter does not have to experience what my mother had to endure on a daily basis, I however feel that it's good for my children to learn of how life was used to be so they get a bit of perspective on their own lives.

Image 10. One of my ski poles after the trip.

In summary the traditional ski-equipment did perform surprisingly well. The wooden surface of the skis are however an issue when wet snow is concerned. Modern silicon-waxes might help battle these problems but using synthetic rubbings on traditional skis might also ruin them. So my advice is that owners of old skis should only use traditional rubbings such as tar, candle wax and animal fat on their skis. They should also refrain from using their skis in exceedingly warm conditions to avoid the problem of snow sticking to the bottom of the ski,

Photo Credits

Image 1-10: Marcus Lepola