Tomahawk Axes

69
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.


“Oh, so die! shouted Magua.
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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  1. +5
    10 December 2022 07: 09
    yes ... that's not what it is ... the wrong "axes" went ... the wrong ones.
    1. +9
      10 December 2022 08: 51
      Hi all!
      Surprisingly, Vyacheslav did not see the real article in the morning. recourse Actually noticed by accident! On the History branch, I already talked with comrades, who also did not check in here, which is not like them.
      Now to the "axes". He is an ax and in "America" ​​an ax. In other matters, the American Tamahawk is not alone in this niche and even looks pale against the background of the domestic D-30 Bulava.

      By the way, the name of a modern mass-produced weapon, something formidable and terrible at the production stage, is akin to fetishism. It's fine when it's a ship, tradition and all that, but when a series of "military bowlers" gets its own name for marketing purposes, it causes nothing but a smile.
      To be honest, I like the names from the people "Katyusha" - BM-13, or even the obscene "Luka Moody ..." for the BM-30. The name given by the enemy will cause even more pride. For example, our I-16 "Ishak", "Ishachek" received in Spain from the Germans drove "Rate" - "Rat". The rest is from the evil one.
    2. +2
      10 December 2022 23: 56
      Quote: Aerodrome
      yes ... that's not what it is ... the wrong "axes" went ... the wrong ones.
      Tomahawks are still used in the US Army today.
      soldier
  2. +4
    10 December 2022 08: 05
    It is surprising how diverse the subjects of articles on VO and their sophistication are.
    Thank you!
    1. +7
      10 December 2022 09: 06
      Quote from Fangaro
      It is surprising how diverse the subjects of articles on VO and their sophistication are.
      Thank you!

      The work of Vyacheslav Olegovich is dangerous to praise. So you have already caught "-" from his spiteful critics.
      hi
      Now according to the article of the Author. If frankly, I learned a lot of new things, especially about applied batons.
  3. +7
    10 December 2022 08: 21
    the head of a bison in front, and these processes depicted his twisted horns!
    I'm still terribly sorry, but where does the bison have twisted horns ??? Translation difficulties again?
    Thank you, Vyacheslav Olegovich!
  4. +2
    10 December 2022 08: 33
    . Evidence of this is the message 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"


    What? 1634? Soccer ball?
    1. +9
      10 December 2022 08: 46
      https://www.footbnews.ru/istoriya-futbola-zarozhdenie-sovremennogo-futbola.html
      "But soon, church servants and feudal lords demanded to cancel such a rough game. This game seemed dangerous to them, and the clergy called football "an invention of the devil." In 1313, King Edward II listened to the opinion of the feudal lords and banned football in the vicinity of cities. Now playing football started outside the city."
    2. +7
      10 December 2022 11: 11
      Quote: sergo1914
      What? 1634? Soccer ball?

      Even Henry VIII forbade the British to play ball, so that they would not engage in "pampering", and on Sundays they would not chase the ball, but would shoot from the bow!
      1. +1
        10 December 2022 11: 15
        Quote: kalibr
        Quote: sergo1914
        What? 1634? Soccer ball?

        Even Henry VIII forbade the British to play ball, so that they would not engage in "pampering", and on Sundays they would not chase the ball, but would shoot from the bow!


        The English Guard, I suppose, was attracted to this? What do the sources say?
        1. +4
          10 December 2022 11: 19
          Quote: sergo1914
          What do the sources say?

          Sources say this is what Alexey wrote above: https://www.footbnews.ru/istoriya-futbola-zarozhdenie-sovremennogo-futbola.html
        2. 0
          10 December 2022 14: 52
          God bless them, let them play. I only feel sorry for those people who were forced to inflate these balls. It’s scary to imagine that all the holes were closed to him during inflation, so that the air would not break through. Okay, when only holes from the back, but when from the side of the face, how did he inhale? Suppose that corn was stuffed into the nose, brought for this purpose from western India, where they were bought from the Indians, such corn cost a lot of money and there it was checked on the spot how it plugs. But how many teams did not swim to those places for verification. In those days, a fully equipped football team was worth more than a regiment of armored cars on horseback.
        3. +4
          10 December 2022 16: 13
          Sources claim that the English Church demanded that the peasants work in their fields and meadows, and instead of working, the peasants ran and "played" all day with the ball!
          And the church fields remained uncultivated...
      2. +4
        10 December 2022 11: 46
        Henry VIII forbade the British to play ball
        Actually, even half a millennium before Henry's ban, the Normans played the ball.
        1. +5
          10 December 2022 14: 21
          What? 1634? Soccer ball?

          The ball received its modern dimensions in France in the 16th century. Before that, it was a bag of two fists, at best, stuffed with sawdust. In the worst sand. The word "ball game" was brought to Europe by the Vikings. In England, they played with their feet, and in France, with their hands. However, if in Britain it was a game of commoners, then beyond the English Channel even kings did not disdain it.
        2. 0
          10 December 2022 14: 57
          Therefore, all the Normans died. The games were very dangerous, especially if there was a crowd of fans, fully armed. Because of this, the list and the name of the teams have not reached our time. All died the death of the strong pushing with their feet a two-pound ball-core from the gates of one city to the gates of another city. And if there was gunpowder inside, or dynamite. And if the nuclear nucleus? About many cities, we will never know.
  5. +1
    10 December 2022 08: 35
    Am I the only one who thinks the picture shows a marriage ceremony?
    1. +5
      10 December 2022 10: 24
      Am I the only one who thinks the picture shows a marriage ceremony?

      This is not a marriage ceremony. The painting is called "Dance to the Berdash". berdash among the Indians - "a person with two spirits" - a transgender. Once a year for such "members of the tribe with an unconventional orientation" such a "festival" was held.
      1. +4
        10 December 2022 11: 13
        Quote from Passeur
        This is not a marriage ceremony. The painting is called "Dance to the Berdash". berdash among the Indians - "a person with two spirits" - a transgender. Once a year for such "members of the tribe with an unconventional orientation" such a "festival" was held.

        ++++++++++++++++++++++++
      2. +2
        10 December 2022 19: 21
        Deviations from traditional gender orientation fluctuate around 7-10%. Is it something that people living in a primitive communal system have more of it? To conduct annual ceremonies?
        1. +3
          10 December 2022 19: 55
          Obviously, the custom of performing rituals does not depend on the number. This custom was noted by the expedition of Portola in 1769.
          I have submitted substantial evidence that those Indian men who, both here and farther inland, are observed in the dress, clothing and character of women – there being two or three such in each village – pass as sodomites by profession. ...They are called joyas, and are held in great esteem.

          This is from the diary of Pedro Fagos.
          1. +1
            10 December 2022 21: 12
            Once a year for such "members of the tribe with an unconventional orientation" such a "festival" was held.

            It turns out that the Indians were not alien to "all this"? ...
            1. +3
              11 December 2022 09: 23
              Quote: Pane Kohanku
              It turns out that the Indians were not alien to "all this"? ...

              Love for the beautiful knows no boundaries. Nasty! bully
              Joke! Joke! Joke! laughing laughing laughing
            2. +1
              12 December 2022 07: 19
              It turns out that the place is simply cursed.
          2. +2
            10 December 2022 22: 44
            Fortunately for me (or unfortunately), I define authorship well in the epistolary genre, and I won’t argue with that.
            1. +3
              11 December 2022 14: 28
              So fortunately or unfortunately? And what is the secret of discernment?
    2. +2
      10 December 2022 14: 59
      If it were a marriage ceremony, then there would be lumps of rubber around.
      1. +1
        10 December 2022 21: 12
        If it were a marriage ceremony, then there would be lumps of rubber around.

        It hadn't been invented yet! request
        1. +2
          11 December 2022 09: 29
          Quote: Pane Kohanku
          It hadn't been invented yet!

          King Minos would not agree with you. There was no rubber, but there was a bladder of artiodactyls. bully
          1. +1
            12 December 2022 09: 57
            King Minos would not have agreed with you. There was no rubber, but there was a bladder of artiodactyls

            Ah, that's right! Yes I completely forgot!drinks
  6. +2
    10 December 2022 10: 05
    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.


    In those days, the army already had the first bayonets. The Redskins turned out to be a strange twist of logic here - they knew spears, they knew how to locksmith and blacksmith for metal a little, but they didn’t do bayonets, which they couldn’t help but know about.
    1. +4
      10 December 2022 11: 03
      The first settlements were guarded by a regular army from the metropolis?
      The settlers themselves clearly did not use bayonets. Their guns were intended for hunting and self-defense, but not for fighting in the field with the enemy in close formation!
    2. +6
      10 December 2022 11: 17
      Quote: ycuce234-san
      In those days, the army already had the first bayonets.

      The settlers did not have an army, which means there were no bayonets either. It will be necessary to write about the Indian wars in order to dot the "I". It's interesting there...
      1. +1
        10 December 2022 13: 57
        Quote: kalibr
        The settlers did not have an army, which means there were no bayonets either.


        Nothing prevented the settlers from making bayonets and bayonets on their own. It would even be useful for a hunter or for survival in the wild and not technologically a mega prodigy. And the settlers should have had militias and arsenals.
        Spears were known and made by both sides - but the bayonet somehow fell under a taboo.
        Please note - the bayonet was invented specifically against the cavalry, and the Indians knew how to use their mustangs and it is strange that it was not in use.
        1. +5
          10 December 2022 15: 20
          Quote: ycuce234-san
          Nothing prevented the settlers from making bayonets and bayonets on their own

          In addition to their own laziness, lack of metal and lack of need. There were no local bayonets even at the beginning of the war for independence. Everyone is writing about this ... The militia - the Minutemen - were, but there were no bayonets. There were hunting knives and tomahawks.
          1. 0
            10 December 2022 17: 04
            Quote: kalibr
            There were no local bayonets even at the beginning of the war for independence.


            Yeah. Each settler and redskin has a knife hanging on his belt, and not one at a time, and no one can figure out how to make a bayonet from them - it’s enough to make a metal collar or a wire one. All this was done by the Indians and the Redskins themselves and bought from the whites - they were sold not only weapons, but many household items and industrial tools, such as plumbing and the same clamps and fasteners, bullet guns, surgical instruments and pharmaceuticals and so on. Yes, and before the whites, they knew how to do many of the crafts and even had states.
            Looking at the old drawings and reading the old texts, you can understand that the guys were quite packed and without whites and up to whites, they were never troglodytes, although they used stone tools.
            1. +2
              10 December 2022 19: 45
              Quote: ycuce234-san
              and no one will figure out how to make a bayonet from them - it’s enough to make a metal clamp or a wire one.

              It's just that no one needed them, to go into bayonet attacks. The bayonet in Europe was also used for a long time only to protect dense infantry formations from cavalry attacks.
              1. 0
                10 December 2022 20: 29
                The point of the question was a little different - in the New World, the simplest bayonet or bayonet-knife could become a successful mass weapon of self-defense for whites and Indians in a situation of weapon malfunction or running out of ammunition. But he didn't. For some reason, it was replaced by a separate wooden archaic club. And it is not clear why such a development of events occurred.
                1. 0
                  15 December 2022 02: 20
                  Everything is clear, the club is much more convenient for the Indian, they did not fight in linear columns, and the militias are also rangers. Well, read something about the history of America then ... What are the bayonets in ambushes and raids?
                  1. 0
                    15 December 2022 19: 06
                    Quote: Icelord
                    Alice is much more convenient for an Indian


                    And then the red-skinned designers began to fasten blades to clubs and sit with such a design in ambushes and go on raids.
                    In fact, the same blade-bayonet, only fixed on a bludgeon instead of a barrel. Ap-Pa-Noo-Se has a design with a built-in thin sheet-knife made of metal and not a classic metal massif of an ax; and in the scene with grizzle hunting - application.
                    There is apparently something related to human bionics and anthropometry, since such a successful baton design turned out.
                    1. 0
                      25 December 2022 16: 04
                      What are you, these ceremonial clubs, what kind of ambush to sit there ....
            2. 0
              15 December 2022 02: 17
              The states there long before the appearance of the whites ended, the same savages nomads destroyed them. And the bayonet in America .... well, where does it come from? And most importantly why?
              1. 0
                15 December 2022 19: 30
                The nomads of the pre-European period were horseless. Therefore, those states defended squads with tactics similar to a dense square or phalanx.
          2. +2
            10 December 2022 21: 14
            There were no local bayonets even at the beginning of the war for independence.

            Have the French and Lafayette already taught bayonets and linear formation?
            There were hunting knives and tomahawks.

            Scouts did use tomahawks initially. Adapted to the tactics of the locals.
        2. +5
          10 December 2022 15: 40
          Quote: ycuce234-san
          and the Indians knew how to use their mustangs

          What mustangs do the Indians of the Eastern Forests and Great Lakes have?
        3. 0
          15 December 2022 02: 14
          There were no bayonets until the end of the 19th century. And there was no army, well, that's all. How the British fought with the French Canadians during the time of Louis 14 read, very interesting, huge armies of 300 militias Yes
  7. +7
    10 December 2022 10: 05
    Butt batons are definitely related to imitation firearms.



    Nevertheless, for the sake of objectivity, it is worth saying that there is an opposite version, which claims that such a form is just a coincidence and the Indians had similar weapons before the arrival of the Europeans.
    1. +4
      10 December 2022 13: 30
      Thanks for the hard work and posts below! Your comment text is too short
    2. 0
      10 December 2022 15: 05
      Not everyone could understand that the Indians had multiply charged tomahawks. And especially valuable ones were equipped with twine, and the very return of the thrower to the hands of the thrower. There were gavkitomo like dogs, they were not abandoned, but they said a secret word - face, and that's it. They themselves scalped and, upon their return, they dried it by breathing from a nozzle.
  8. +8
    10 December 2022 10: 51
    The most common weapon of the Indians of North America before the arrival of Europeans is such, well, almost such a club.

    "Almost" is putting it mildly.

    In general, with regard to the shape of clubs, the Indians showed enviable imagination.
    1. +3
      10 December 2022 11: 20
      You are... keep writing! And pictures ... Otherwise, my material has already reached the limit in terms of volume in signs ...
      1. +7
        10 December 2022 12: 46
        And pictures...

        We take this book from the shelf - there are hundreds of pictures.

        You are... keep writing!

        Boileau-Narcejac is unlikely to succeed from us.
        1. +3
          10 December 2022 13: 32
          Quote from Passeur
          Boileau-Narcejac is unlikely to succeed from us.

          I looked at this book ... Traditional edition of the 60s - black and white graphic contour drawings in the text, several color photos on coated paper tabs, and a lot of black and white photographs. Photos - separately, signatures to them separately. To be honest, I don't like these kinds of books. Now both the manner of presentation and design have changed. So in some ways you can easily surpass him. Easy ... But for this you need to contact the cultural center of the Cherokee reservation, the PR specialist of the "Lakota Republic", the administration of the Navajo reservation and, of course, two museums on Indian culture - in Washington and in New York, the Smithsonian Institute. This is such a headache, and the result is 50/50, otherwise they will break $ 50 for one photo. And what for me? Although ... you can try, what the hell is not joking ???
          1. +5
            10 December 2022 14: 06
            So in some ways you can easily surpass him.

            Well, it simply won't work. You yourself wrote about it below. As for the "manner of presentation" - lubok is now out of competition. In everything.
            1. +2
              10 December 2022 15: 23
              Quote from Passeur
              Well, it simply won't work.

              Also true, but I love it when it's not easy. Here in Vienna they are now denied pictures, I found a "way around". Let's see what will happen here... By the way, in Penza, my good friend makes tomahawks and... how will it be beautiful to illustrate an article or a book... with such photos?
              1. +3
                10 December 2022 18: 36
                Illustrating historical materials with a remake is hardly a good idea.
                1. +3
                  10 December 2022 19: 41
                  Quote from Passeur
                  Illustrating historical materials with a remake is hardly a good idea.

                  This is just your opinion, dear Viktor Ivanovich. In fact, such a publication as "Popular Science" and many other publications are now working on this principle. The main thing is that the remake does not differ from the "old-fashioned".
                  1. +2
                    10 December 2022 20: 37
                    And who is Viktor Ivanovich?
                    It's only in your eyes

                    Why on mine? I once met a French collector at the Schlumpf Brothers Automobile Museum in Mulhouse. He explained to me that a truly restored car should be in the same form as it was when it left the factory and with all the original details. Otherwise, the value of the car as a collectible and, accordingly, the price, is significantly reduced.
                    Obviously, the publication, if it claims to be historical, must be accompanied by appropriate illustrations.
                    1. +2
                      10 December 2022 21: 38
                      Quote from Passeur
                      Obviously, the publication, if it claims to be historical, must be accompanied by appropriate illustrations.

                      I must have been wrong. But the name doesn't matter. Any comment is a plus for the site, except for frankly stupid ones. And as for historical materials ... why do I need them, when it is much easier, more interesting, and more profitable to write popular science. You open several Popular Science magazines. They are working on this technique right now, an interview with an archer, a swordsman ... how he does it, how he waves. Where does it poke. So I'm doing something similar, only better. I will finish the next 1,2,3 books. And you can get busy. In the meantime, my buddy will bring in tomahawks, of the finest quality. Gorelik out and made shields for the Royal Arsenal in Leeds and swords ... And we are worse? Better!
                2. 0
                  10 December 2022 21: 17
                  Illustrating historical materials with a remake is hardly a good idea.

                  Write better, dear sir. Send Shpakovsky, he will publish. Well, what is there... drinks
            2. +3
              11 December 2022 11: 54
              And that is why the books of the 30s - 50s of the twentieth century are still so alive and humane.
    2. +5
      10 December 2022 13: 19
      These are most likely Polynesian clubs. Indian gunsmiths are children compared to them.
      1. +4
        10 December 2022 13: 40
        You are right, it's just that by inertia I wrote "Indians" instead of "natives".
    3. 0
      15 December 2022 02: 23
      There are a lot of Polynesian and New Zealand weapons here, but I doubt about the North American Indians
  9. +5
    10 December 2022 16: 25
    It turns out even George Washington gave a pipe tomahawk to the leader of the Seneca Corn Harvester!
    "... The tomahawk with which our story began, the Corn Planter received a gift from George Washington in 1792, in recognition of his peacekeeping efforts. It is a type of "pipe tomahawks" that has spread since the middle of the XNUMXth century. They have on the butt of an ax a special cup was made from a piece of gun barrel or cartridge case, connected to a channel made inside the handle."
    https://m.polit.ru/article/2018/07/21/ps_cornplanter/
  10. +2
    10 December 2022 20: 25
    And I always thought that the Indians made tomahawks for themselves ... And it turns out that they didn’t even get to that ...
    1. +1
      10 December 2022 21: 40
      Quote: Crimea26
      didn't even get that far...

      They made: flexible clubs, butt clubs, clubs from deer antlers, elk, native copper (and knives too)
  11. -1
    10 December 2022 22: 21
    Well, that is, the Indians had nothing to do with the creation of the tomahawk. Naturally. It's hard to come up with a more useless weapon on the prairies) It's just that the Europeans were willing to sell this bullshit to the Indians, and the Indians bought it, because where to go? Again, smoke...
    I was always annoyed by this frankly idiotic construct in the hands of the Indians in the drawings. Ever since childhood. When I was only able to lift a real ax to chop wood with it ... Arrow, spear, this is a real Indian weapon. And a small hatchet, so that it is functional, is something like a chupagi. But chupaga requires virtuoso mastery and appropriate conditions, so the Indian culture did not give birth to anything like that.
    The culture of dreamers has left us no significant material traces at all. Have cats, whether that, ask? Only they are known to us as the native inhabitants of the world of dreams...
  12. +2
    10 December 2022 23: 36
    Throwing an ax at a distance.
    Sports from the competitions of the northern all-around (running with a stick, triple national jump, throwing a tynzyan (= lasso, lasso) on a trochee (a pole made of wood used to drive deer), jumping over sleds)
    The master of sports throws the "axe" at least 150 meters, the record is 315 meters.
    According to legend, the reindeer herder liked the way swans fly, and he decided to launch something into the air that flew just as beautifully, and made an ax with a handle in the form of a bird's wing.
    To expand the horizons of VO readers.
    hi

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