Sheep Eaters
Contributors to this thread:Wild Sheep
From: DL
09-Aug-23
From: Huntcell
09-Aug-23
Huntcell 's Link
Shoshone!
They were named for the bighorn mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis), which they commonly hunted.
From: BULELK1
09-Aug-23
Kool pic DL.
Good luck, Robb
From: stealthycat
09-Aug-23
I love reading books about the 1800's ..... right now its "Yellowstone Kelly" and as I read these books, sometimes I think there were more sheep in the west than there were elk and deer combined. Its amazing how many sheep there used to be
From: Huntcell
09-Aug-23
“Shoshones in bighorn sheep habitat manufactured the sheephorn bow over a period of two to three months by boiling and straightening the spiral horn of the bighorn sheep. In geothermal areas, hot springs may have served to heat the horn. The horn would be shaped over time and backed with sinew. When completed, this bow was shorter but also much more powerful than bows made out of wood, boasting a pull strength of up to 70 pounds. Horn bows fetched a high price in trade value of five to ten horses. The bow is one of the most powerful bows created by indigenous people in North America.[18]”
18. Loendorf and Nabokov, p. 164-167
From: Stoneman
09-Aug-23
Making bows from bighorn sheep horns is a dying art. A friend of mine has one of these bows made by a man in Wyoming.
He has the video that steps through the process. Very interesting and amazing piece of history.
From: bowonly
09-Aug-23
Stoneman, any chance of posting a photo of that bighorn backed bow or a link to the video of making them? Anybody know of examples on display in a museum? No wonder it's a dying art. Obtaining the raw material is hard to come by. Not many hunters volunteer their horns to be cut up! Ouch!
From: Lewis
09-Aug-23
Very interesting thanks for sharing I really enjoyed it Lewy
From: Stoneman
09-Aug-23
bowonly search Tom Lucas
From: Beendare
09-Aug-23
I have some Border archery limbs that look like that....Does that count- grin
From: Zbone
09-Aug-23
Cool painting... Curious what was the core wood of these horn backed primitive bows...
From: PushCoArcher
09-Aug-23
From: PushCoArcher
09-Aug-23
Sheep head hung from tree at a camp
Sheep head hung from tree at a camp
For anyone interested in the sheepeaters and how they hunted I can't recommend "Survival by Hunting prehistoric human predators and animal prey" by George C Frison enough. Some of the sheep traps that have been excavated are amazing.
From: 4nolz@work
09-Aug-23
there is no core wood they are made from horn Ive made them using Toms CD it is ALOT of work
From: Zbone
09-Aug-23
Hmmm... So no core wood and the horn is the core and backed with sinew.... Interesting, but then 3 pictures up (looks like page 206) where is says a pair of staves taken from main beams of elk antlers... Huh, how do ya get antlers to bend regardless of how thin they could grind them???
From: 4nolz@work
09-Aug-23
Zbone it's 100% bighorn sheen horn or it's not a true sheepeater bow.I have a DVD of Tom's where he makes a sheepeater bow from start to finish even by soaking the horns in a hot spring to soften.I didn't read the above stuff
From: Zbone
09-Aug-23
Okay, so we're talking 2 separate bow types from the Shoshone, elk horn (in the book) and sheep horn, but if you read, both were backed with sinew, so the authentic bows of the Shoshone were not 100% sheep horn....
From: PushCoArcher
09-Aug-23
Zbone yes two different bows. The sheepeater bow is the sinew backed horn bow. The book claims the elk antler bows were made by the Cheyenne and Blackfoot. It also states they're not as durable as horn bows and are prone to snapping and may have been more ceremonial than practical.
From: Zbone
09-Aug-23
Thanks for clarifying PushCoArcher...
From: Catscratch
09-Aug-23
They way I understand it the sheep bow is likely 100% sheep. It's sheep horn backed with sinew. I'm guessing since they lived on sheep it was likely that that's where they got their sinew from as well as the hide for the glue. I wonder what design and lithic their points were?
From: 4nolz@work
09-Aug-23
OK .....+sheep sinew.....
From: Zbone
09-Aug-23
8^)
