and for the dart, walis na tingting for the dart, kapok to feather and achiote to color my darts and a ready made soft target: banana trunks.
But the sumpit, the blowgun that I made, served only as a toy.
I now live in Fredericksburg, Virginia half a world away from Pambuan, a small village in Central Luzon in the Philippines where I grew up.
I still shoot blowguns. But the blowguns and the darts that I now shoot, I buy from mail order houses.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank: Marty Bohanon for the camouflage, 3-piece .40 caliber blowgun. Bruce Bell for the list of ASBA affiliated associations. Jose Capitulo for posing as an attacker. Steve Charlson for the curtain rods and a .40 caliber blowgun. Fred Cupolo for posing as an attacker. Joseph Darrah for the .50 caliber blowgun. Ueli Laeng for the bahi and yantok blowguns and the blowgun rack. Robert Mulligan for taking the photographs in Chapter 14. David Paiva for the Cherokee blowgun and the Peruvian pucuna. Peter Sampogna for posing as an attacker. Tracy and Larry Schnitzer for the bamboo blowguns. Dave Sustak for the chronological history of the sport of blowgun shooting. Lynn Thompson, president of Cold Steel, for the .625 caliber blowgun. Greg Vecchi for the landscape timber and the 2” by 4”s. Dr. Hironori Higuchi for writing the Foreword, for the .51 caliber blowgun and fukiya darts. Thoraya Zedan for taking all the other photographs, for two laptop computers and for solving all my computer problems. Especial thanks to my wife Cherry and son Mat Jr. for giving me all the time I needed to complete this work.
WARNING
Blowguns are not toys and safety must be your first concern when you practice shooting the blowgun.
Darts—especially those with sharp tips—are very dangerous and may cause injury if misused or carelessly handled.
Adult supervision and adequate training is recommended when the blowgun is used by a minor for their safety and for those of others in the area.
You must conform to all laws concerning the ownership and use of blowguns and assume all responsibility of all safety practices and legal use.
chapter 1
TRADITIONAL BLOWGUNS
The blowgun is essentially a long, hollow tube through which projectiles such as darts or pellets are shot. The projectiles are propelled by a blast of air from the user’s lungs. Blowguns are designed to deliver darts from a distance—silently. They have been used by many cultures either for hunting small game or for sporting.
Traditional blowguns were handcrafted and were constructed of materials native to the shooter.
INDONESIAN, MALAYSIAN AND PHILIPPINE BLOWGUNS
The traditional Philippine blowgun is called sumpit but was given the name zarbatana by the Spaniards. The word is a variant of cerbatana, a lance. The Indonesian blowgun is called sumpitan. In the village where I grew up we made sumpits, toy blowguns, from short straight sections of bamboo. Note that the Brazilian blowgun is called zarabatana 1 indicating a common origin of the word.
Blowguns from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines are usually made from bamboo. However, occasionally, one would find blowguns made from hardwood. Blowguns double as hand held-clubs or spears when darts run out.
Straight sections of bamboo are needed to make the blowguns. Bamboo, if crooked can be straightened by heating it over a fire. The bamboo is first sprayed with water to prevent it from charring. The crooked part of the bamboo is rotated over the fire to ensure that it becomes uniformly flexible. The bamboo then is pressed against a tree trunk to straighten the crooked part. The crooked part can also be pressed against the knee to straighten it. If the bamboo bends again, the process is repeated until it is straight. It is then allowed to dry.
The bamboo blowgun can be one-piece and is usually about 4 feet. It is this short because it is not easy to remove the barriers from longer pieces of bamboo. The barriers are removed by hammering on a small diameter piece of hardwood to the end of which is attached a small metal point. The barriers are smoothed using an arc-shaped sharp metal piece that is attached to the end of a long piece of hardwood.
It is easier to remove and smooth the inside of shorter sections of bamboo. It is also easier to find short sections of bamboo that are straight. Thus, two-piece or three-piece blowguns can be made from bamboo with couplings (also made from bamboo) used to connect the short sections.
The shafts for the darts are also made from bamboo. Short pieces of bamboo are cut between two nodes and then split into smaller thin pieces. The shafts are then rounded to the required diameter using knives or broken bottles. The shafts are between 6 to 10 inches long.
The shaft can also be made from the walis tingting (a broom) that is made from the spine of the leaves of a palm tree. The walis tinting was used to sweep leaves around our house in our yard in the village where I grew up.
The shafts are feathered with the yellowish cotton-like material taken from the pod of the kapok tree. The blunt end of the shaft is first rubbed with a sticky resin. The kapok sticks to the resin and is then wrapped around the shaft into the shape of the modern q-tip.2 The sharp tip is fire-hardened.
CHEROKEE BLOWGUNS
The Cherokee blowgun is made from river cane a species of bamboo that is native to and grows well in the southeastern US. Indeed, where I live in Fredericksburg, Virginia, one will see river cane growing by the roadside.
The Cherokees make their blowguns from straight sections of river cane. Ideal lengths are 6-8 foot straight sections. River cane of the proper length can be straightened by heating any crooked portion over a fire. The river cane is then bent the opposite way and held in the position to prevent it from bending back. It is then sun-dried for several days. The Cherokee blowgun is made in two ways:
• Embers are dropped on the barriers to burn them. An arrow attached to a small stick further removes the barriers and smoothes the inside. To finish the blowgun, a smaller diameter river cane is inserted into the blowgun to rub the inside.
• The river cane is split down its length into halves to get at the barriers. The barriers are then scraped with a knife and then smoothed. The long sections are then glued together and lashed with sinew.
The shaft for the dart for use with the blowgun is made from any hardwood such as black locust. The dart is traditionally between 18-20 inches long and is feathered with thistle down. Thistle is best picked during August. Thistle down is wrapped around the shaft’s dull end then tied with sinew.
The Cherokee darts were never poisoned because they were used for hunting small game for food.
SOUTH AMERICAN BLOWGUNS
ECUADORIAN BLOWGUN –The Waoranis of Ecuador use the knot-free chonta tree to make blowguns that are at least 91⁄8 feet long. They cut a sapling and split it down the middle to expose the soft core.
It takes several days for the Waorani to make the blowgun. He has first to remove the soft core and carefully carve the center into half cylinders. The two halves are then tied securely with vine. The inside of the blowgun is smoothed by repeatedly pouring sand into it. The final polish is done by rubbing the inside with a wooden rod and then running fine clay through the bore. The outside of the finished blowgun is elliptical. Thus shaped, it will fit across