Description
Book SynopsisExamines North American Aboriginal peoples’ use of Indigenous and European distance weapons in big-game hunting and combat. Beyond the capabilities of European weapons, Aboriginal peoples’ ways of adapting and using this technology in combination with Indigenous weaponry contributed greatly to the impact these weapons had on Aboriginal cultures.
Trade Review"
Gifts from the Thunder Beings [is] an excellent place to start for anyone studying the relationship between native peoples and European firearms."—Daniel P. Barr,
Journal of American History"Crisply written. . . . It should be read and appreciated by all students of ethnohistory."—David Silverman,
Ethnohistory“Aboriginal weapons are an important subject in themselves and for their role within Native societies and Native-white relations. Roland Bohr’s knowledge of how Aboriginal weapons work and why they were constructed as they were allows the author to critique the ethnocentric and technologically ignorant assumptions of many earlier scholars. As a bowyer himself, Bohr brings knowledge of making and using bows and arrows lacking in earlier scholarship to his careful historical research.”—Dr. Laura Peers, curator of the Americas at the Pitt Rivers Museum and reader in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford
Table of ContentsContentsList of Illustrations, Maps, and TablePreface1. Bows, Guns, and Diverging Views on Indigenous and European Technology2. Indigenous Subsistence Patterns of the Hudson Bay Lowlands and Northern Plains3. Bows of the Northern Plains and Subarctic4. Arrows and Arrow Makers5. Aboriginal Peoples and Firearms6. Injuries Caused by Arrows and Firearms7. Archery and Firearms in Aboriginal Beliefs8. Archery and Firearms in Hunting9. Archery and Firearms in Combat in the Central Subarctic10. Archery and Firearms in Combat in the Northern Plains11. Survival and Adaptation of Aboriginal Archery and European FirearmsAppendix: Extended Image CreditsGlossary of Archery TermsNotesBibliographyIndex
