Figure a flat iron or stone arrowhead, wooden shaft maybe fledged with turkey feathers, probable fairly short composite bow.
Indians were using composite bows back then? Interesting.
What kind of materials, and how were they made?
I was quoting from distant memory. But here’s a link….
https://www.quora.com/Did-Native-Americans-have-composite-bowsNote that the Berlandier cited is regarded as a valuable and credible source re: Texas, particularly his detailed paintings (an early form of “pics or it never happened”). Note his description of the length and power of Karankawa bows.
A bit off topic….
The nature of the bow involved in that 200 yard shot, if such occurred is unknown of course. But in the realm of improbability Ranger Captain RIP Ford relates of a series of encounters with Comanches in the 1850’s wherein one Comanche was armed with a “Swiss rifle”, picking his mounted men off at long range. He doesn’t mention that they ever caught the guy so who he was remained undetermined.
Could have been an Eastern tribesman, they were all over the Plains in the 1800’s. The longest recorded hits with round ball flintlock rifles occurred in Florida, 1835, Second Seminole War, Battle of Withlacootchie. General Edmund P. Gaines, who surveyed much of the Southeast, reported that the Seminole Indians were hitting his men at “almost 500 yards”.
