Tomahawk Axes
The famous Vinnetou (actor Pierre Brice) with a tomahawk in his hand, in the movie "Vinnetou - Apache Chief" (1964). The blade of his tomahawk is flat, forged and fixed in a cut of a wooden handle.
and threw his tomahawk at the defenseless blond girl."
F. Cooper "The Last of the Mohicans", Detgiz, 1961
History weapons. The previous material about “just axes” ended with the end of the Middle Ages and, no doubt, we will talk about more “modern” battle axes. But how can one not interrupt this story and not look to the other side of the earth, to America, primarily North America, where it was the ax that became perhaps the most important weapon of the local Indians in hand-to-hand combat.
The most ancient "tomahawks" were the most common stone axes. Moreover, the earliest tomahawks with a metal blade just repeat the design of the ancient stone and copper (from native copper) wedge-shaped axes. Then the Europeans came to their land and brought iron with them, as well as firearms.
The most common weapon of the Indians of North America before the arrival of Europeans is such, well, almost such a club. This one only belongs to the XNUMXth century and is therefore decorated with beads. Pitt Rivers Museum – home to the archaeological and anthropological collections of the University of Oxford in England. It is located to the east of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and can only be entered through this building.
Evidence of this is the report of the Englishman William Wood, who, in his book published in 1634, described Indian tomahawks as "sticks two and a half feet long with a large knob like a soccer ball." In fact, we have a description of a typical mace, and not an ax at all.
However, it is also obvious that the Indians inserted sharply honed blades into wooden handles and received weapons in the form of a small hatchet on a rather long handle. Such axes were already known in the XNUMXth - early XNUMXth centuries, but at the same time the so-called “applied clubs” appeared, which in essence represented the same tomahawk, only of a slightly different design. It’s just that the Indians noticed that when whites have no charge in their guns, and they have to fight hand-to-hand, they take up the barrel of their gun and wave it like a club. The Indians liked the idea of copying the white weapons, and that's how the applied clubs appeared.
Georg Catlin - Indian painter (1796-1872). Indian dance, and one of the dancers is just armed with a butt club
Butt clubs are definitely related to the imitation of firearms that Europeans brought with them in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. They spread very widely in North America: from the southern to the eastern plains. The Northern Plains used thicker, heavier butt stock types, while the Sioux in the Midwest used longer, thinner versions.
Grizzly hunting. Artist Georg Katlin
There is another evidence of borrowing from Europeans, if not the weapon itself, then at least the ideas embedded in it: for example, the heart-shaped blade on the upper edge is very similar to the tip of the esponton, a rather richly decorated European polearm, very popular after the middle of the XNUMXth century. century. When trading with Europeans, the Indians exchanged brass furniture nails with beautiful shiny hats from them and decorated their applied clubs with them.
Ap-Pa-Noo-Se, the leader of the Sauk tribe with a butt-bludgeon of the most intimidating kind. A series of XNUMXth-century postcards depicting Indian chiefs
Over time, an applied club with a blade-shaped blade (sometimes as many as three knives were inserted into it!) Lost its military significance and became a kind of symbol of the leader's power.
A butt-mace, circa 1820, owned by an Osage warrior. It is decorated with brass furniture nails, red on one side and green on the other. Pitt Rivers Museum
Frame from the movie "Chingachgook - Big Serpent" (1967). The warrior in the second row in the center has just an applied club in his hands
In the Missouri River area, until the middle of the 2,54th century, tomahawks were used, which were produced for the Indians by the Canadian French. They were even called so: "Missouri battle axes." They usually had a simple butt with a round eyelet one inch (10,16 cm) in diameter and a thin but rather wide canvas (15,24–35 cm). The handle was at first short - about 450 cm, but over time it began to lengthen. Weight is about XNUMX g. It is interesting what tomahawks without sharpening also find, and the question is, what kind of weapon is this? Combat or ceremonial?
Missouri Battle Axe, ca. 1860 Osage Tribe. The small crosses stamped on the wrought iron blade of this battle ax most likely represent the constellation of stars. The parallel lines carved into the handle, decorated with brass nails, are similar to the beaded patterns on leggings from this region. A beaded pendant hangs below the handle. French traders provided this type of battle ax to the Plains Indians as early as the 1700s, and it became the weapon of choice for hand-to-hand combat among Indian tribes along the Missouri River. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Bimetal tomahawk, consisting of a steel blade and a cast brass butt with a cup of a smoking pipe. Used by the British in Indian trade after the French and Indian Wars. Missouri Historical Museum
However, the most popular type of tomahawk looked a little different. This is the so-called "pipe tomahawk", which appeared around 1685, and from the middle of the XNUMXth century became very widespread among the tribes of the East Indians. The British and French were engaged in their production for barter with the Indians, and then the Americans also took up this profitable business.
French espontonic tomahawk pipe. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The main feature of pipe tomahawks was a through channel along the entire length of the handle and a cup for tobacco on the butt. Enterprising craftsmen made them from gun barrel scraps and even from brass shells. The channel was either burned in the soft core of ash, or the handle was glued from two halves, after which, for strength, it was fastened in several places with copper or brass rings, or wrapped with wire.
Iroquois tomahawk-pipe, 1758 with handle winding. Belonged to Karl Magnus Wrangel. Ethnographic Museum, Stockholm
Mouthpieces were usually made of metal: pewter, lead, silver, and even nickel-plated brass. The upper hole could be plugged with a cork made of wood, metal or horn. There were also quite ingenious cups with carvings inside. Then the head of the hammer was screwed into it. But it could also be the other way around: the cup was unscrewed, and a spike was screwed in its place to turn the tomahawk into a "double-edged weapon." It is significant that tomahawk pipes had a purely utilitarian meaning and had no sacred meaning.
Chief of the Omaha tribe Big Elk with an espontonic tomahawk-pipe. Painter George Catlin, 1832
There were also so-called espontonic tomahawks, descended from polearms, which were armed with officers of the European armies of the XNUMXth century. As a rule, they had a “rhombic blade”, in which “moustaches” were made for beauty (processes twisted in both directions back and forth). Sometimes the canvas of such a tomahawk was made like ... a bison's head in front, and these processes depicted his twisted horns! And it also had four holes - nostrils and eyes.
Lone Wolf, chief chief of the Kiowa tribe, with espontoon pipe tomahawk, 1872. Photo by Alexander Gardner
If the canvas of the tomahawk was in the shape of a rhombus, then there could be a large rhombic hole inside it. It is interesting that such “curly blades” were also inserted into butt batons. And there were also tomahawks with a point or a hook on the butt. The model for them was the sea boarding axes used on the then sailing ships and ... axes of firefighters. The Iroquois were very fond of being photographed with the latter.
Tomahawk Oglala, Dakota, (Sioux) Late XNUMXth century Brooklyn Museum. The pendant decorating the handle is made of beads. When the Europeans had not yet brought beads to the Indians, they used home-made beads from porcupine needles cut into short tubes. This is how black and white beads were obtained. Later, a brightly colored woolen thread was passed through the needles and only after that they were cut into beads!
A spike is one thing, but a butt in the form of a hammer is quite another. But such tomahawks also existed and were produced in factories in Europe and the USA for sale to the Indians. So we can say that the whites themselves forged weapons for the Indians, with which they also killed them.
In the fur trade, axes were also used - and they were called so - “fur trade axes” or “camp axes”. They were produced in Holland, France and England, they were made according to the model of European ones and in North America itself. They were lighter than European ones and were, so to speak, a universal tool that could be used both in the economy and in battle. They were usually exchanged for beaver skins. Sometimes they were even called "tomahawk squaw" because women also used them.
Tomahawk "camp axe" type, 1750–1759 Royal Arsenal, Leeds
There were also "halberd tomahawks" - really similar to halberds, specially made small axes, again, deliberately made for trading with the Indians. The British and Spaniards supplied them to the Indians. The handle of these tomahawks at the lower end often had an iron inlet in the form of a sharp cone. The ax itself had the shape of a crescent, often with slots, and two additional points: one on the butt and one - the continuation of the handle. The point and cup of the smoking pipe could be threaded to the butt.
Mohawk Chief John Norton with Tomahawk Halberd
Some samples of such tomahawks are more than original. For example, instead of a point, a bison horn or a spearhead could be attached to the butt. They were used by the Indians of the eastern forests in the 1700s and until the end of the Revolutionary War. As trophies, they came to the Apache Indians, and some tribes bought them from Spanish merchants, for whom the craftsmen remade European halberds that had gone out of fashion.
It is believed that the Indians were only engaged in throwing tomahawks right and left in battle, but this is not so. The tomahawk was expensive for the Indian, he paid for it with beaver skins, and the beavers still had to be caught. Therefore, although in the books of the same Fenimore Cooper this happens very often, in fact the Indians, although they knew how to throw them, rarely used such a technique.
"The Last of the Mohicans". "Bad Indian" Magua throws a tomahawk at the meek girl Alice, but, of course, misses. And most importantly ... why was it abandoned? He could well come up and stab her with a knife, and even remove the blond scalp. He's kind of stupid, this Magua. But what can you take from a savage? A savage is a savage! Illustration from the collected works of F. Cooper, Detgiz, 1961
It was customary to decorate tomahawks. And the way they were decorated with different tribes may well become the topic of a separate study. For example, the most common decoration was the sheathing of the handle with fur or colored cloth, on which several rows of brass nails with large hats (usually in a checkerboard pattern) were stuffed or tightly wrapped with coils of brass or copper wire. Having picked up a branch with bark suitable for the handle, the Indian could cut through patterns on the bark, expose the wood and then burn it on fire. Under the bark, the tree remained white or yellow, and where there was no bark, it was slightly charred. It turned out a beautiful, indelible pattern. Some handles were carved. So, for example, such a tomahawk-pipe with a carved handle was made in captivity by white Apache leader Geronimo in 1890.
Tokei-Ito from the movie "Sons of the Big Dipper" (1965), fighting Red Fox on the banks of the Missouri. He throws a tomahawk at him, but he also misses...
Of course, the Indians used everything they had at hand as decoration, that is, feathers, ermine skins and, of course, scalps. The handles of dance-ceremonial tomahawks had various pendants at the end in the form of leather strips embroidered with beads and decorated with fringe, bells, strips of cloth or fur. Tomahawks could have pipe cups inlaid not only with lead and tin, but even with gold and silver.
Tomahawk pipe of the Ponca tribe. Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Tomahawk blades were often engraved. For example, on one of the "museum tomahawks" of 1800 there is a drawing depicting a tall Indian who is about to hit a short, pale-faced man with a tomahawk. A kind of Indian David and Goliath!
Double-edged tomahawk of the Ne-Perse Indians ("Pierced Noses") from the Hudson's Bay Company with a handle decorated with wallpaper nails and a richly embroidered pendant. Brooklyn Museum
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