[Aztlan] Huichol Bows and Arrows

[Elaine Day Schele]

Dear Listserv Administrators,

I know that you can't send out images, but I wanted to share these two that
I have attached, so perhaps you could create links for them.

Hi Rene,

The Huichol Indians, who did not live in Guatemala but were from the Eastern
Mexican state of Nayarit used bows and arrows.  They called their bows
"grandfather" and arrows "feathered serpents."  The arrows in the picture
are ceremonial arrows, but they also had arrows that they used for hunting.
They thought that the feathers on the end of the arrows possessed the magic
of the flight of birds (they didn't know the physics of it), since they
helped the arrow hit its mark better. These are also the Indians who make
the "God's eyes".

Carl Lumholtz studied these people during the late and early 1900's and
wrote several documents about them, the most extensive of which was "The
symbolism of the Huichol Indians".  The document is available online at
http://digitallibrary.amnh.org/dspace/.  You can use the search engine to
find it.

Elaine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Justin Kerr" <mayavase at verizon.net>
To: "'GuateWeb - Posada Belen'" <mail at guatemalaweb.com>;
<aztlan at lists.famsi.org>
Sent: Monday, April 16, 2007 7:14 AM
Subject: Re: [Aztlan] Question about arrows and arch


> Dear Rene,
> This is a negative reply.
> In searching the Maya Vase Database, I have not found any indications of
the
> use of arrows or the suggestion that during the period that vases were
> painted, incised, or carved that "bows and arrows" were in use. The only
> "weapons of flight" that are observed is the use of either the blowgun or
> the atl-atl.
> Here I may be a heretic, but the very early accounts of the use of the bow
> and arrow may be a product of imagination on the part of the Europeans who
> made assumptions that bows must be in use when shafts from atl-atls were
> flying about them.
> In doing quick glance through the pages of various "maticula de tributos"
of
> the Aztec times ones does not find any "bows or arrows" depicted.
> In Western Mexican art, Colima for example, there are depictions of the
use
> of the sling, but again no arrows.
> If anyone has any images of the use of the "bow and arrow" in Mesoamerica,
I
> would be happy to know about them.
> Justin Kerr
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org
[mailto:aztlan-bounces at lists.famsi.org]
> On Behalf Of GuateWeb - Posada Belen
> Sent: Sunday, April 15, 2007 3:15 PM
> To: aztlan at lists.famsi.org
> Subject: [Aztlan] Question about arrows and arch
>
> Dear Listeros
>
> I will like to ask if is any one who can point me to some light about when
> the inhabitants of mesoamerica and specially Guatemala started the use of
> the arrow and archs? and if any study/information about the rock weels
> (known as "donas") that are so common in Guatemala?
>
> Thank you for any help
>
> Rene Sanchinelli
> www.posadabelen.com
> www.guatemalaweb.com
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