Archery in South-east Asia and the Pacific
N.W. Simmonds, a botanist whose primary fieldwork in 1954–55 was botanical rather than ethnographic, published this comprehensive survey of primitive archery in 1959. Drawing on field observations across the Pacific and Southeast Asia supplemented by extensive museum studies, the article argues that the technology, distribution, and performance of archery in the region are fundamentally governed by the availability of monocotyledonous materials — palms, bamboos, and grasses — and that these material constraints explain both the geographic pattern of shooting techniques and the ceiling on accuracy achievable by primitive archers.
Summary
Simmonds organises the survey geographically, moving from Polynesia in the southeast to northeastern India in the northwest, describing under each heading the bow construction, arrow technology, and method of shooting. The central analytical thread is technological rather than cultural: the author demonstrates that the choice of bow stave (palm, bamboo, or dicotyledonous hardwood), the form of the string (twisted fibre versus strip), and the material of the arrow shaft (grass versus bamboo) are not independent variables but form an interlocking system that determines which hold can be used and what level of accuracy is possible. The pinch hold, which is universal across Melanesia and the Pacific, is shown to be a direct consequence of the combination of strip strings and nockless grass shafts; the Mediterranean hold, which appears only in the Philippines, Malaya, and India, requires a firmly nocked arrow and is therefore dependent on access to bamboo or other materials that can be reliably nocked.
A second major argument concerns the absence of composite bows in the wet tropics. Simmonds reasons that sinew backing and animal glues cannot survive in a warm, humid climate, making the self-bow the only viable construction. This, in turn, limits the draw weight and efficiency achievable with locally available timbers. The author also addresses the curious absence of chipped-stone arrowheads in the region, noting that the skill required to produce them is no greater than that needed for the elaborate carved points of New Guinea, and speculating that the absence may reflect local availability of suitable stone rather than any technological incapacity.
The evolutionary argument that closes the article is that meaningful advances in shooting accuracy require the simultaneous achievement of several interrelated innovations — matched arrows, a constant draw, a well-placed anchor point, and efficient fletching — and that in many parts of the region, the local material environment forbids progress in one crucial detail (typically the nock), thereby blocking any general advance. The Kukukuku of the New Guinea highlands are cited as a partial exception, having developed matched arrows and a standard draw, which may account for their reputation as formidable warriors.
Key Findings
- Fijian bows, made exclusively from the aerial roots of Rhizophora and Haplopetalon mangroves, measured 130–180 cm and bore a characteristic pith groove that had been misinterpreted by earlier writers as a spare-arrow channel or backing-cord seat (pp. 67–68).
- The New Guinea palm bow (150–220 cm, Archontophoenix spp.) had an estimated service life of only about one thousand arrows, a short longevity attributed to the tangential splitting strains imposed by trimming the back of a skin-to-belly stave (pp. 71, 99).
- The Andaman S-shaped bow, over two metres long, was asymmetrical in both profile and longitudinal plane, with the tips of the two limbs twisted in contrary directions; it was the only bow of its kind known from the region (pp. 90–91).
- The Khasi sporting bow of bamboo drew forty pounds at twenty-five inches, and eight hits out of ten was considered good shooting — roughly equivalent to eighty percent of shots in the black on a conventional European target at fifty yards (pp. 92–93).
- The Santhal bow of north Bengal drew forty-one pounds at twenty-one inches and, when its draw curve was compared with four other bows, proved superior to two sporting lemonwood bows and roughly equal to a steel sporting bow (p. 94).
- New Guinea archers, tested informally at Goroka, hit a notebook page at fifteen yards once in fifteen shots; a man missed a domestic fowl at three yards that he could not have caught with his hands (p. 78).
Conclusion
Simmonds’ definitive takeaway is that the inaccuracy of the primitive archer of Southeast Asia and the Pacific is not a matter of cultural deficiency or lack of skill but is structurally imposed by the material environment. The combination of strip strings, grass shafts, and the resulting necessity of the pinch hold creates a technological lock-in that prevents the development of the nocked arrow, the constant draw, and the Mediterranean or Mongolian hold — all of which are prerequisites for the kind of accuracy seen in the world’s great archery traditions. Where local materials do permit partial advances (as with the Kukukuku’s matched arrows), the result is a measurable improvement in combat effectiveness, confirming that the ceiling on performance is set by technology, not by the archer.
Context
- The article draws on specimens in the Fiji Museum, the Australian Museum (Sydney), the Indian Museum (Calcutta), the British Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum (Oxford), the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology (Cambridge), and the Royal Botanic Gardens (Kew), supplemented by field observations in New Guinea, the Khasi Hills, and Manipur (pp. 65, 102).
- Historiographically, the paper sits at the intersection of economic botany and material-culture studies, applying a botanist’s taxonomic rigour to the classification of bow and arrow technologies. Its argument that material availability, rather than cultural choice, is the primary determinant of archery technique anticipates later work in technological determinism and represents one of the most systematic comparative surveys of Pacific and Southeast Asian archery published in the mid-twentieth century.