Vocabulary of the Arrow.
Arrow, a missile shot from a bow. The possible parts are the head, barb-piece, foreshaft, shaft or stele, feathering, nock, and seizings.
Arrow cement, substance used in fastening the arrow-head to the shaft. A few tribes use glue or cement in making the sinew-backed bow.
Arrow-head, the part of an arrow designed to produce a wound. The parts of the primitive stone arrow-head are the tip or apex, faces, sides, base, shank or tang, barbs, and facets. Arrow-straightener, a piece of bone, wood, or ivory, with a perforation to serve as a wrench in straightening arrow-shafts, barbs, etc.
Barb-piece, the piece of ivory, etc., on some arrows attached to the true head, and having barbs on the sides. This should be carefully discriminated from the foreshaft, which has another function altogether.
Base of an arrow-head, the portion which fits into the shaft.
Bow-shot, the distance to which an arrow flies from a bow.
Chipper or flaker, the pointed implement of bone, antler, etc., used for shaping flint arrow-heads, spear-heads, etc.
Cock-feather, the feather of an arrow which is uppermost when the bow is drawn.
Faces, the broad, flattened portions of an arrow-head.
Facets, the little surfaces left by chipping out a stone arrow-head.
Feathering, the strips of feather at the butt of an arrow, including the method of seizing or fastening.
Flaking hammer, called also a hammer-stone, a stone used for knocking off flakes in making flint arrow-heads, etc.
Fletcher, an arrow-maker; akin to fleche.
Footing, a piece of wood inserted in the shaftment of an arrow at the nock.
Foreshaft, a piece of hard wood, bone, ivory, antler, etc., at the front end of an arrow to give weight and to serve for the attachment of the head.
Nocking, placing the arrow on the string preparatory to shooting.
Pile, the head of an archery arrow; any arrow-head may bear the same name, in which we may have a one-pile, two-pile, three-pile arrow, etc.
Pitching-tool or knapping-tool, a column of antler or other hard substance used between the hammer and the core in knocking off flakes of stone.
Riband, a term applied to the stripes painted on arrow-shafts, generally around the shaftment. These ribands have been called clan-marks, owner-marks, game-tallies, etc.
Shaft, anciently an arrow, but strictly the portion behind the head, and in a fore-shafted arrow the lighter portion behind the fore-shaft.
Shaft-grooves, furrow cuts along an arrow-shaft from the head backward; they have been called blood-grooves and lightning-grooves, but these names are objectionable as involving theories.
Shaftment, the part of an arrow on which the feathering is laid.
Shank or tang, the part of an arrow-head corresponding to the tang of the sword-blade.
Sides of an arrow-head, the sharpened portions between the apex and the base, also called the edges.
Stele (stale, shaft), the wooden part of an arrow; an arrow without feather or head.
Tip, a term applied to the sharp apex of an arrow-head.
Trajectory, the curve which an arrow describes in space; may be flat, high, etc.
Whipping (seizing, serving), wrapping any part of a bow or arrow with cord or sinew regularly laid on.
There are some nice questions concerning the arrow which my colleagues will discuss; others are yet in doubt. I do not think we are yet authorized to say that all tribes distinguished the rhomboidal hunting arrow head from the barbed war arrow head. The shaft streaks are called blood grooves by some writers, lightning grooves by others. In the one case the motive is practical, in the other it is magical. The grooves are present on many arrows—long straight channels, zig-zag lines, broken lines, and so on. The reason assigned by the ordinary Indian has never satisfied my own mind, although the magical reason seems to me nearer to his psychical state.