Long before Saxton Pope and Art Young met Ishi, and learned from him about making bows and hunting with them, other fellows had taken to the stick and string for their “sporting” needs. We are fortunately that some of those took the trouble to write about their adventures. They speak of vastly different times, where wildlife’s abundance was seemingly endless, and where secrets lay behind the boundaries of civilization. Time proceeded at a different pace, and for those with the inclination and a modicum of resources, venturing forth into unknown lands and discovering its hidden treasures was only bound by one’s perseverance/
J. Maurice Thompson, and his brother Will, young men after the ending of the American Civil War, were two of those inteprid souls, and in the book “The Witchery of Archery” described their adventures. It is predominantly Maurice doing the writing, but the book is concluded by a reprint of an article by Will’s hand, printed in Forest and Stream in 1915.
A lot of their adventuring took place in Florida, where they chased prey that would give the 21st century ornithologist or bird watcher severe heartache. Woodpeckers, white and other herons, plovers, ducks of all kind, everything was fair game. In fact, Maurice himself states it this way:
“Anything that flies, swims, climbs or runs is game for the archer. He shoots at everything, from a tom-tit to a hawk or an eagle, from a ground-squirrel to a deer. He is out for sport, and means to have it.”
Times have changed a bit since then, and killing herons to make a buck by selling the feathers is no longer something deemed appropriate or in fact legal. But the essence of bow hunting hasn’t changed much over the course of a hundred and fifty years:
“To be a successful hunter with the bow, you must know perfectly all the habits of your game; you must be stealthy and sly as an Indian, not the least excitable, patient, watchful, storing up in your memory every item of experience; and, above all, you must be keen sighted and steady of hand. For to get within good bow-shot of your game is of the first value, and scarcely second to this is the power of instantly centring all your faculties in the act of shooting.”
Maurice and Will made sure that their firepower matched the number of opportunities, on their multi-week trips: “Our arrows, about three hundred in number…”. A bow hunter these days may feel he has things covered if he brings a dozen on an extended trip.
I enjoyed this book. The language, as with many of the adventure/travel literature of that era, is a bit dry, and there are more than a few words that I had to look up in the dictionary, but the stories tickle the imagination. I paid around five dollars at Amazon for a Kindle edition (which makes looking up the big words as easy as touching the word on your screen), but a free version is available at www.archerylibrary.com/books/witchery/