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362
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(SUPPLEMENT, 1876.
Shall we not dread their fearful crime-their still sily tied on. Their bows are of bamboo, of much more fearful end ?
the same shape and quite as long as the bows of When falls the tribe, then long-revered primeval the famous English archers of old, to judge from custom fails;
one or two specimens of the latter preserved in When law is broken and o'erthrown, the lawless the Tower. The cords are long strips of rattan. will prevails;
Scott says of an archer of the days of the When lawlessness infects a tribe, then women are Edwardsmade base;
Well could he hit a fallow-deer When women sin, then springs to light a mixed
Fire hundred feet or more. unhallowed race.
The jungle bowmen attempt no such flights, Then sink to hell, alike defiled, the slayers and the but shoot from behind trees, rocks, and bushes, slain,
lying in wait by narrow deer-paths, by water, and Nor longer can departed sires their blessed world
where they know the deer will pass close by-in maintain,
fact, taking pot-shots as closely as they can. Cut off from holy offerings they fall and curse They do not draw their bowstrings to the ear, their sons ;
nor hardly to the breast, nor take long aims, but Thus upward, downward, through the race the twang off the arrow with extraordinary force, toul infection runs.
holding the bow rather low. Though small and Then awful is our sin, who, drunk with blind meagre men, the force with which the arrows ambition's wine,
Strike would satisfy one of Robin Hood's men, the Can long to shed the sacred blood of our own royal shafts going almost through the bodies of the line;
animals. Deer are their principal quarry. I have Ah! better far if standing here with undefended heard of their killing tigers. I do not know of head,
their using poison, Unshielded breast, unstorded hand, some foe “The smaller arrow-heads exhibited are princishould strike one dead.
pally ancient forms, not now in use, but employed C. TAWNEY. formerly in war. Those grooved along the sides,
or roughened under the point, were charged with INDIAN ARROW-HEADS.
a viscous poison. There are many varieties of the Mr. WALHOUSE has exhibited before the Anthropo
form with open centres, which are said to have logical Institute a collection of iron arrow-heads
been peculiarly dangerous, the flesh closing into from Southern India, on which he made the fol
the head as badly as round a barb. The crescent lowing remarks :
shape is common both to India and Africa, and "A diagram of forms of arrow-heads used in
we hear of it in Roman times; the blunt, pointless Africa, exhibited by Lieut. Cameron at bis lecture
heads are said to have been used for killing birds on African Ethnology, delivered before the Insti
vered before the Insti- i without drawing blood or injuring the plumage. tute at the School of Mines, induced me to bring
In the days of the Rajas, when bows and arrows forward the selection of Indian arrow-heads now
were in common use, the Hindus gave full play to on the table for the purpose of comparison. Most
their fancy in devising endless shapes of arrowof the larger and broader arrow-heads are used
heads, some very elegant, and some fantastic, to-day by jangle tribes in the wilder forest tracts
probably more formidable in appearance than under the principal mountain ranges of Southern
execution." India, the Nilagiri and Palani Hills, and the Western Ghats. Four or five of the shapes closely INSCRIPTION OF THE VIJAYANAGARA resemble those used in Africa. The larger and
DYNASTY AT HARIHAR. heavier leaf-shaped heads, whether broad or nar- The accompanying plate gives a facsimile, row, are mostly used by the Indian jungle-hunters from Major Dixon's photograph, of No. VII. for killing deer. These men shoot very dexter- of Mr. Fleet's series of Sanskrit and Old Caously and with great force, but do not attempt
narese Inscriptions. A transcription of it, with long shots, for which, indeed, their large and
translation and remarks, is given at p. 330 of heavy arrows are unsuited. Their arrows are formed from strong reeds, generally over a cloth
the Ind. Ant., vol. IV. The language is Sansyard long, and to us would seem very top-heavy,
krit. The characters are those of the Canarese from the size and weight of the head. Perhaps to alphabet, in its last stage before the full dc. remedy this the two feathers are large and clum- velopment of the modern forms.
From the Calcutta Review.
