Bow, arrow making connects locals to the land

Though hand-carving one's own weapon or tool isn't common these days, there are individuals who keep the crafts alive and teach others how they would survive had they lived just a few hundred years ago on the Missouri frontier.

The Cape Girardeau Nature Center is hosting long bow and primitive arrow making workshops in October, taught by Scott Kelley of Cape Girardeau, and A.J. Hendershott of Marble Hill.

Hendershott is the Outreach and Education Supervisor with the Missouri Department of Conservation, is a bowyer. He can carve out bows, oars or any number of what some people would call "primitive" wooden tools.

However, according to The Traditional Bowyer's Bible, the ancestry of a wooden bow stretches back thousands of years and the book says wooden bows will shoot an arrow as fast and effectively as the most modern fiberglass-laminated bows.

Jay Massey, one of the seven contributing authors of The Traditional Bowyer's Bible, implies there's no romance in the steel cable or magnesium pulley of the modern bow and he questions its cultural value.

Hendershott said bow making is a creative release.

"While I didn't make the tree, I do use my crafting gifts to find a bow in a piece of wood and release it. Satisfaction is doing something you desire to do and are capable of achieving -- even if it is work," he said.

Hendershott's love for bow making evolved from his first interest in spear throwers after a workshop about 10 years ago.

"I made them [spears], researched them and often did interpretation in programs where I explained that the spear thrower was what people hunted with before the bow. Eventually I wanted to make a bow," he said.

After he made his first bow, he couldn't stop.

"I have an understanding wife," Hendershott said.

He's since made both of his children a wooden bow and they enjoy shooting, he said.

"My son wants to hunt with one and I would love to see them make one some day," Hendershott said.

But he said he won't push if interest isn't there.

"It's something you have to want to do," he said.

He said making a bow requires the harvesting of a wild resource, a tree, and the bow maker will hopefully harvest another wild resource -- meat.

"That lesson is direct and easy to see; that you're living off the land in that instance," he said.

According to Hendershott bow making teaches confidence, craftsmanship, decision making, and patience, but the more deceptive message is that people still live off the land.

"Most folks never see that connection," he said. "If a wooden bow can teach that lesson, whose child doesn't need that?"

Hendershott's long bow making workshop will be at the Cape Girardeau Nature Center Oct. 24-25. Though space is no longer available to participate as a student in the workshop, Hendershott said anyone is welcome to stop by and watch the action.

Space is still available for adults who wish to take bow making a step further. Scott Kelley, of Cape Girardeau, is a naturalist with the Missouri Department of Conservation and the facilitator of the upcoming primitive arrow making workshop Oct. 11.

"Most people who are interested in making bows would find interest in making arrows," Kelley said.

He said the majority of participants in the bow or arrow workshops are individuals who are interested in connecting with the past and their ancestors. He said a "survivalist mentality" is currently very popular due to the many current ‘reality' network television shows.

He said though some people may be reluctant to try either bow or arrow making, the difficulty of the workshop depends on a participant's individual abilities.

"It's not that difficult to do, but what we know comes from thousands of years of experience," he said, guessing the inventor of the arrow had less difficulty than enthusiasts today.

"He may have had an easier time due to the necessity of harvesting food. He understood what it meant to live or die where we can reach in our pockets and get some cash out to by our dinner," Kelley said.

This is the first arrow making course at the Conservation Nature Center, according to Kelley.

"After taking one of A.J.'s bow making courses, it inspired me to take the next step to making arrows," he said.

The primitive arrow making workshop is free and all supplies are provided. For more information contact Scott Kelley at the Conservation Nature Center at (573) 290-5218.