Bow Hunting "MEDICINE"

[IB]

NO not First Aid. I just got the latest TBM, James Swan's article fanned a few old flames that I seem to have just taken for granted or have become such a BOW HUNTING HABIT if you will that it has become what I do.

For instance, I have two spaces in any of my quivers that are occupied by the same two arrows each and every time I have Bow in hand. One of them is a AD Trad Heavy with a WW, the other is an old Ash Shaft beat to death rascal with who knows what will end up on the business end.

The wind checker string on my Bow/s is the same string that I have used since the early 60s, it just changes bows.

I pack in my pocket a BOKER Tree Brand 4 blade that my Grandfather gave me new when I was 9 years old it went with me to Vietnam and back. Still have the box it came in $9.00.

Back in my other life I was given a small Brain Tanned Smoked beaded and Quilled pouch, full of mystical small items that swings around my neck.

My latest addition came at Texas Sweat 07, a brother blessed me with his Pillow. His Name I promptly etched on the Pillow and that Pillow will now be with me on ALL my future Hunts.

I guess one could call all this my Magic, My Lucky stuff or my MEDICINE.
I however prefer to say that I am paying Honor to those I have great respect for. I like having my friends with me when I have Bow in Hand.

How bout you, what is always with you? add photos so we can all feel with you.

[Killdeer]

This broken knife. Everready is a 10 dollar find at a gun show, made by ATCO. Never heard of them, made in Italy. It has opened every deer that I have killed since I bought it, 'cept the one I killed after Everready had a bad experience in the dryer. One of the scales broke, as jigged bone does not do well tumbling in a steel drum.

My buddy just made me some new scales out of lignum vitae. That oughta do her! Is the knife magic? No. But its history with me makes it valuable to me, and my friend's kindness makes it priceless. I can't wait to make it whole with the blood of a deer staining the unfinished wood.

I carried a Dano arrow all last season. I carried Frank's antler-butt necklace and Robin's bearclaw.

There are other things that I carry to camp, but not necessarily into the field. My best medicine is my attitude. I walk in gratitude for all that the Creator has given not just us, but the world. A functional world could have had all the inherent beauty of a Borg Cube, but God adorned it with filigree and scrolls. Why?

It had to be love, a love of creating, a love of beauty.
God could have created us with the sense of beauty possessed by tetanus bacilli, which, I assume, have very little or none. We are, however, created with an appreciation for and a desire to create beauty. Why?

It had to be love. The love that was given by our Creator lives within us, echoes of our source. How can I explain this to the nonhunter, that I walk in gratitude, love and awe, yet I am seeking to kill?

The other word for medicine is mystery. And so, medicine is that which we find it impossible to explain. Perhaps that is why the tabus regarding talking about that which we hold clutched to our hearts, tied in our braids, in our medicine bags. To expose it to air dries it out, reduces it to dusty words, soulless pictures.

But something that one considers to be lucky, now that appears to be fair game. You can see my rabbit's foot, but you better ask before you touch it.    

Killdeer  

[4runr]

Good stuff Killdeer. I wish I could express the way you do. You said it and I feel it. That's all.

[Tree man]

My primary bow was built by my dad and has deer sinew and rawhide from a deer I killed with another bow that he made me.This "medicine" is good. Do I believe in magic or medicine as a religous/metaphysical matter-no. Do I believe in emotional specialness and coolness factors adding to the whole experience? Yes , I do.

[Tree man]

I just read what Killdeer wrote-Well said!-I DO believe that the love and apreciation for beauty is a gift from God.

[IB]

Tree Man...........        

As I said I prefer to pay HONOR!

[Nakohe]

God created nature for us to enjoy and take care of. I feel so at peace when I walk the woods and also carry a bag made of buckskin made and beaded for me by a Kiowa-Seminole friend of mine. She beaded a Medicine Wheel on it. I carry certain things dear to me in it for luck. Don't know if it helps, but it makes me feel closer to the Creator and my ancestors when I have it with me.

[Benha]

Good stuff

[Stone Knife]

This is kind of neat that this thread was started today. This morning i decided to go scout for some turkeys normally i take my jeep but today i took my mountain bike, i was checking out a few spots and thought i would head over to my friends farmland that borders the state park. I like to look for arrowheads and points here so i thought i would combine the two, turkeys and points. It looked like rain when i left and the sky was slowly getting darker, at this point i was about five miles from home. I rode my bike down to the hedgerow that divides two fields parked it and headed out on foot, i hadn't gone ten yards when it started to thunder that's when i heard at least three different turkeys gobble back to the thunder, right after i heard them i looked down and saw this nice little point, what a stroke of luck i thought. Then for some reason i thought that i would carry this point with me this spring can't hurt it might bring me some good luck during my first trad turkey season. So this point could be big time turkey medicine for me.


   

[Danny Rowan]

A certain knife is always on my hip as well as a little hawk. A bison fetish and a mountain lion fetish are always in my leather medicine bag as these are my spirit animals that vist me the most in my dreams.I also carry a stone point that I found lying at the head of a deer I killed in Texas a couple of years ago. Do they help, don't know but it is an honor to carry them and to show respect to my Cherokee/Choctaw ancestors.

Danny

[woodchucker]

The absolute first thing that is a "must have" on ALL of my hunts.....Is the Buck 110 Folding Hunter that my beautiful wife Lisa gave to me our first Christmas together in 1987.

The second is a Red&Black wool plaid hunting hat that many of our Northeast TradGang Brothers have seen. (and laughed at) Even I have to admit.....It's pretty silly looking but it's always with me even if I'm not wearing it,It's in my pack. It now wears a yellow plastic hunting button that belonged to my good friend Lew,who "made the journey" last fall. It says, "Crum Elbow  Rod&Gun Club 1954"

The last are my "Medicine Arrows".....

After my good friend and nieghbor Lew Wendover "made the journey" last fall,his wife Jean gave me all of his hunting gear.Jean gave me his guns,2 old "Allen" compound bows,and a big box of "Huntin' Stuff" (ammo,cleaning kits,targets,etc) there was a box of old archery equipment in there. In the box among the assorted "tresures" were about 3 dozen green Bear Razorheads (both screw-on and glue-on) and the 2 old Allen bow quivers and to old back quivers contained 2 dozen Eason alluminium "Autumn Orange" XX75's (2016's)

I stripped the plastic vanes,and cleaned the shafts.I then gave them to my VERY good friend Joe Skipp,who did an absolutely BEAUTIFUL job crown-dip,cresting,and refletching them for me.These arrows are tipped with Lew's old green Bear Razorheads.

These are my "Medicine Arrows" and they will go on all of my hunts untill they are gone.....

(or I am gone)

May The Great Spirit Guide Your Arrows