The
Workmanship Of Their Canoes, I Have Before Observed, Is Very Rude; And
Their Arms, With Which They Take The Most Pains In Point Of Neatness, Come
Far Short Of Some Others We Have Seen.
Their weapons are clubs, spears or
darts, bows and arrows, and stones.
The clubs are of three or four kinds,
and from three to five feet long. They seem to place most dependence on the
darts, which are pointed with three bearded edges. In throwing them they
make use of a becket, that is, a piece of stiff plaited cord about six
inches long, with an eye in one end and a knot at the other. The eye is
fixed on the fore-finger of the right hand, and the other end is hitched
round the dart, where it is nearly on an equipoise. They hold the dart
between the thumb and remaining fingers, which serve only to give it
direction, the velocity being communicated by the becket and fore-finger.
The former flies off from the dart the instant its velocity becomes greater
than that of the hand. But it remains on the finger ready to be used again.
With darts they kill both birds and fish, and are sure of hitting a mark,
within the compass of the crown of a hat, at the distance of eight or ten
yards; but, at double that distance, it is chance if they hit a mark the
size of a man's body, though they will throw the weapon sixty or seventy
yards.
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