Bighorn sheep bows

Bows made from the horns of the desert and Rocky Mt bighorn sheep were in use among many of the Plateau, Basin and plains tribes. By all accounts they were much desired  and valuable possessions.
 On the plains they were used by the Cheyenne, Crow, Sioux, Hidatsa, Mandan, Arikara, Gros Ventre, and although I have not seen one the Blackfoot were said to have them. Further to the west they were in use by the Flathead, Nez Perce, Shoshoni, and Paiute. Further south they were used by the Ute centered in the Colorado Rockies, and the Southern Paiute in Utah and Nevada.
 The average length of these bows were about 32 inches or so. Horn and sinew can handle a great deal more bend than wood, so this size would handle the draw length of 20+ inches. Horn can handle a great deal of compression and sinew will do the same for the tension.
 In George Bird Grinnell's book "The Cheyenne " He writes a bit about the bighorn bow. "Bows made of the horn of the mountain sheep were durable and very useful, and long ago many of these were possessed by the Cheyenne" He goes on describing how he heard they were made and adds that after they were backed with sinew they were "very strong and springy" The finishing of the bow was done by rubbing the sinew and horn with a buffalo rib to make it smooth and shinny . The tips were wrapped with sinew to hold the string and the sinew back was coated with burnt gypsum mixed with hide glue to whiten the back. He says this was done on many of the best bows, even of wood and sinew. In Encyclopedia of Native American Bows, Arrows, and Quivers Volume 2 by Steve Allely and Jim Hamm, p 166 has a Cheyenne bighorn bow. This one is 32 5/8" long. 1 5/16 wide at the grip, 1 1/8 at mid limb and 1/2" below the nock. This one has a buckskin wrapped handle ( Grinnell said this was standard on horn bows) and a 3 ply sinew string. Instead of being whitened, this one is blackened with melted pitch over the sinew. This also helps to waterproof the sinew, but in my experience the sinew takes some moisture from the sap and the reflex caused by the sinew is less, so the bow looses some power. In this same book he also has a sheephorn bow from the Crow. This one is 30 7/8", has a nice double curve shape, and measures 1 1/8 wide by 9/16 thick at the grip. 31/32 x 1/2 at mid limb, and 15/32 x 1/2 at the tip. The bow is circa 1830 and must have had a heavy draw.
 Windriverhistory.org has a text called "Mountain Shoshone: The Sheep Eaters" In this Tom Lucas recreates the bows of this division of the Shoshone who once lived in the Yellowstone area. They were able to use the hot springs to soften the horn to make it easier to work and shape.

T M Hamilton's book "Native American Bows" has a lot of information about horn bows, including a newer appendix by Bill Holm on making sheep horn bows. Appendix 2 has hornbows from the Grayson collection. Dr Grayson also has a chapter in "The Traditional Bowyers Bible volume 2" about hornbows. Appendix 4 has descriptions of 7 sheephorn bows in the US National Museum. The curator notes that he thinks 4 of the bows are cow horn. This may be true but I think they are miss labeled and are bighorn. Bighorn bellies can look a little like cowhorn. The curator sad it must be cow horn as it is not buffalo horn.
There are 2 Sioux horn bows. 34.5" long, 1 1/8 x 3/4 at the grip, 1 1/16 x 17/32 at mid limb, and 7/16 x 3/8 below the nock. The bow is made of 2 horns connected at the grip. The horns were butted together and riveted with 2 iron rivets to a short piece of horn 8" long on the back of the bow. The other Sioux bow is 32". The heavy sinew back is covered with canvas. This made it hard to get accurate. measurements, but it is about 1" wide near the center. A Hidatsa  bow is 36" long, 1 3/16 x 3/4 at the grip. 1 x 9/16 midlimb and 7/16 x 7/16 below the nock. This bow is spliced at the center by lapping one piece over the other 3 3/4 inches and riveting with 8 rivets. I have used this method and it works well. The Ute bow mentioned before is also in here. This Ute bow by the way was made of one piece of horn. Must have been a trophy horn!. In OT Mason's book "North American Bows Arrows and Quivers" he has drawings of double curved Sioux and Hidatsa bighorn bows.
 There are also 4 Paiute bows listed. There are also 4 Paiute bows listed. 2 of these were collected by John W Powell during his travels in southern Utah and the Colorado River area in the 1860's. The first one is listed as cow horn also. This makes me almost sure that every bow he claims to be cow horn must have been mistaken and was bighorn, as the Paiutes had many bighorn and even elkhorn bows but not cow. It is spliced in the middle and the nocks are just a taper with a buckskin band below. It is unstrung and has a smooth curve. 30 inches long, 1 1/32 x 5/8 above the grip, 29/32 x 15/32 mid limb and 15/32 x 15/32 below the nock. The next one is 33" long, 1 1/16 x 9/16 center, 15/16 x 1/2 mid limb and 1/2 x 9/32 1 inch below the tip. The nocks of this bow were formed by sinew extending past the horn and curled up, just as the Miwok bows of California. The sinew is covered with pitch. The last one is listed as coming from the Digger Indians of California. Digger was also a slang name given to many Paiutes. It is sharply reflexed. Nocks are like above with sinew wrap. The bow is wrapped with fine sinew the entire bow. 33" long, 15/16 x 17/32 center, 7/8 x 7/16 mid limb and 15/32 x 5/16 below nock. Another Paiute horn bow in the Smithsonian is 31" long, width at handle- 1 1/8, 1" mid limb and 1/2" below the nock. It has a shallow c reflex and a buckskin handle. Perhaps the oldest surviving piece of Paiute horn bow came from a rock shelter excavation in Elko county Nevada near the Utah boarder. It is 22.3cm of the tip of a old bighorn bow. Very weathered but still has a sinew wrap and signs of more. It is 12 x 24.5 mm thick and wide. The tip is rounded and the cross section is half round with the flat back showing signs of sinew.
    With the exception of the Comanche, It appears that most of the Numic or Shoshone/Paiute nations of the basin and plains used the horn bow. The Sheep Eater group of the Northern Shoshone were known for there fine sheep horn bows. These are the Indians of the Yellowstone and Wind River area in Montana and Wyoming. Archaeologists say it was these Shoshone who pecked the Dinwoody style petroglyphs that are found in this area. These are distinctive strange spirits or "Pandzoavits" usually around water. The large collection of  Dinwoody petroglyphs on the Southern end of Stansbury Island on the Great Salt Lake show that this belief was also in the Salt Lake area of Utah, or at least used the island as a sacred site. Today it is on the shore of dry salt flats to the south, but as recently as 1869 those salt flats were water and a thin peninsula connected it to the Stansbury mountain range to the south. Historically, in there Yellowstone range  They used the hot springs to make working and shaping the horn easier. In Loendorf and Stone's book "Mountain Spirit" they devote a chapter to these bows. In this chapter there is a sheep horn bow found in a cave in western Wyoming. This bow was dated to 1737. I believe it is 33" long and is made of 2 horns joined at the handle with a butt splice. The back of the bow has a thin 15cm long piece of horn under the sinew at the handle and there is evidence of one being on the belly at one time. There is also a as best said in the book "tongue depressor" at the handle splice. There is a x ray picture in the book that I can not explain in words. There are no rivits in this bow, so this tongue must have been some important device to keep this butt from pulling apart.

  It is not known how long horn bows have been in use in the new world. The wooden bow came to be used around 200 AD in the area of horn bows. Many people believe that the western sinew backed bow and horn bow technology came to the new world from Asia. Brought here by sea going explorers before the time of Columbus.
   There was an article written in Primitive Archer Magazine of a more than 200 year old composite horn bow from I think Turkey?. The author was eventually able to string it and bring it to near full draw. These bows will last and shoot many lifetimes of wood bows.