Sometime ago I started putting together notes on easily made
weapons and started off with spears since most survival books
make this out to be quite simple. Just grab a length of wood and
sharpen one end and off you go. Not quite.
Assuming that you do have a handy forest nearby, you won't see that many
6ft+ lengths of timber of suitable width just growing from the ground,
not anywhere I've been, anyhow. If you do find something without needing
to chop down a tree, it probably won't be straight so you have to beath
it. This involves gently roasting the wood over a fire or in hot ashes
to make it temporarily supple. You'll probably have to hang it to dry a
day or so.
For a throwing spear, just sharpening a point on and throwing it may not
be enough -it will probably yaw like crazy and you may miss your mark by
a foot. Although fletching is sometimes used, most spears are
stabilized by drag, for which the front half needs to be heavier than
the rear. For a "self" spear (one made of a single piece of wood) this
is can be done by tapering the shaft towards the butt, or better still
selecting a length of wood that is already tapered. Captain Cook's
expedition to Hawaii acquired a very nice example of such a spear, which
must have been the product of many hours carving, particularly since the
owner was unlikely to have had metal tools.
A simpler option is to fit a heavier head or a weight just behind the
head. Flint heads are well know but one can also carve a blade from
wood, maybe gumming flakes of flint or shell to it. Fixing a knife as a
point will do but the blade length handy for a knife is often too short
for a spear and any cross guard will limit penetration. Traditional Boar
spears penetrated at least ten inches, and Bear spears more than double
this. A point can be carved from wood, and fire hardened in some cases,
but if for a throwing spear ensure it has sufficient weight. Other
materials include flint, obstinan, glass, shell, slate, bone, horn,
antler or metal, either on their own or added to a wooden head.
Some times your intended meal will have other ideas and will want to
come up and inform you of its differing opinion. In such a
situation a thrusting spear is useful, no matter what weapon you
were using. Balance isn't a problem but penetration still is,
but this time too much rather than too little. Some beasties
have been known to impale themselves further onto a spear or
sword attempting to get the hunter. The solution to this is some
form of arrest, usually a crossbar a foot or more down the
shaft. Having more than one point automatically limits
penetration, as can be seen with the Chinese Tiger Fork.
Thrusting spears are also used for hunting, usually from ambush.
A thrusting spear will lack any barbs so that it can be easily
withdrawn for a second thrust or to be used against another
target. A throwing spear may be barbed, and in a hunting
situation this may be done for two reasons:-
Firstly it is done to keep a poisoned blade in the animal's body long
enough for the poison to take effect. Often the head detaches so
that the shaft (a product of quite a lot of work) will not be
lost or damaged as the animal escapes through the brush or tries
to rub the head loose. Having a wound partially plugged by a
shaft reduces the rate of blood loss, but the movement of the
shaft will also inhibit clotting, prolonging bleeding time.
Heads are also barbed to prevent an animal escaping from the
spear head when the shaft of the spear is held or the weight of
the shaft will hinder escape. The most familiar examples of this
are fishing spears (which may be thrust as well as thrown).
Sometimes the head will be designed to detach but will be on a line so
that the fish/ seal/ hippo can be hauled in once exhausted. The
drag of the detached shaft through the water may further tire
the animal and sometimes a bladder is added to increase this
effect. This technique is also used with arrows. Because fish
are often hard to hit, many fishing spears have multiple points
and this strategy may also be used on small elusive furred and
feathered game too. If suitable materials are available, and the
above design principles are borne in mind, quite effective
spears can be made.
A useful trick that can be applied to spears is to tie a loop of cordage
to the shaft and slip the first two fingers through the loop
when throwing. This increases energy transfer to the shaft and
was known to the Greeks as the Amentum. A variant of this is to
tie the cord with a half hitch, either near the centre of
gravity or the butt. Using this knot allows the cord to remain
with the thrower after the spear is cast. Miners in West Riding,
Yorkshire used this method to throw 31" long drag stabilised
arrows, and ranges commonly exceeded 200 yards. Conventional
arrows can be thrown by the same method and this maybe a useful
hunting technique should your bow be broken.
Cold Steel make a
Boar spear with quite practical head dimensions. They also make
a similar javelin without an arrest. Boar spears were the Swiss
army knives of european polearms -being used for hunting and war
and also being useful walking and wading aids, carrying poles
etc.
Once again, not to be outdone, our friend
Lee Fugat has just written
something pertinent about spears to the thrower mailing list!
Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 13:38:19 EST
From:
TONKASILA (lpndolfn@c-zone.net)
To: thrower@dfw.net
Subject: Re: About throwing
Hi Harry and All! Funny you should mention spears I just started making short
javelins with rawhide wraps and fur etc. for sale (I'll send anybody a flyer
iffen y'a'll send me a SASE) but the ones I use for practice are real easy to
make. Take one of those cheap leaf shaped throwers
[I believe Lee is referring to the
"Blazing Arrow" throwing knife, ed.].
I make mine from industrial
band saw blade from the local mills.
Grind down the handle end to a even 3/4
for about 3 to 4 inches, get some 3/4 inside diam. alluminum pipe 1/8 inch wall
thickness is good. Now go the the furniture making section of the hardware
store and sort thruogh the 3/4 inch by 4 foot birch or ash dowells til you
find the straightest grain ones. Take a saw and cut a slot in the end of
the dowell to snuggly match the handly of the thrower you just modified. Coat
the slot and the inside of the 4 to 5 inch long piece of pipe(always cut the
pipe 1 inch longer than the slot for strength) tap the pipe down onto the
dowell first then , with a block of wood and a mallet force the blade down
into the slot, drill a 1/8 inch hole thruogh the pipe , dowel, and blade for a
retaining pin (optional, mine don't come out ) I throw these as is easily 75
to 80 feet with certainty of hitting my 1 foot log round target.
If this interests you, please check out our
Primitive Weapons and Technology page, and if
you really want to throw that spear far or hard, don't fail to look into
the ATLATL.