blow tube

A blowgun (also called a blowpipe or blow tube) is a simple ranged weapon consisting of a long narrow tube for shooting light projectiles such as darts. It operates by having the projectile placed inside the pipe and using the force created by forced exhalation ("blow") to pneumatically propel the projectile. The propulsive power is limited by the strength of the user's respiratory muscles and the vital capacity of their lungs.

History

Many cultures have used such a weapon, but various indigenous peoples of Eastern Asia, Southeast Asia, Western Europe, North America, Central America (the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala), and South America (the Amazon Basin and the Guianas) are best known for its historical usage.

Projectiles include seeds, clay pellets, and darts. Some cultures dip the tip of the darts in curare or other arrow poisons in order to paralyze the target. Blowguns were very rarely used by these tribes as anti-personnel weapons, but primarily to hunt small animals such as monkeys and birds. North American Cherokees were known for making blowguns from river cane to supplement their diet with rabbits and other small creatures.

Blowguns are depicted in paintings on pre-Columbian pottery and are mentioned in many Mesoamerican myths. Back then and today, the Maya use a blowgun to hunt birds and small animals with spherical dry seeds and clay pellets. The clay ammunition is made slightly larger than needed (to allow for shrinkage and refinement) and stored in a shoulderbag. The outside of the dry clay pellet is shaved off and burnished right before use.

Shorter blowguns and smaller bore darts were used for varmint hunting by pre-adolescent boys in traditional Cherokee villages. They used the blowguns to reduce the population of small rodents such as rats, mice, chipmunks and other mammals that cut or gnaw into food caches, seed and vegetable stores, or that are attracted to the planted vegetables. While this custom gave the boys something to do around the village and kept them out of mischief, it also worked as an early form of pest control. Some food was also obtained by the boys, who hunted squirrels with blowguns well into the 20th century.

Today blowguns are used with tranquilizer darts to capture wildlife or to stun caged dangerous animals. Herpetologists use blowguns to capture elusive lizards with stun darts. Blowguns are also used recreationally, with either darts or paintballs.

Sport blowgun

There are several competition styles practised around the world. A standardization of competition style, based upon fukiya, is being pursued by the International Fukiyado Association and hopes to become an Olympic event. It is a target shooting, using a standardized length 120 cm or 48 inch, and barrel caliber, dart shape, length and weight are free. In each round the shooter shoots 5 darts and there are 6 rounds per game, for a total of 30 darts. The target faces are 7 (6 cm), 5 (12 cm), 3 (18 cm) points. The bullseye is 160 cm above the floor.

Two other styles are also being pursued to make up the Olympic blowgun event, both based upon the Cherokee Annual Gathering Blowgun Competition. The Field Style competition is similar to the winter Biathlon, where the shooter runs from a starting line to a target lane, shoots and retrieves the darts, and continues to the next station. The course length varies from or longer, with from 9 to 16 targets at various heights and shooting distances. The final style is the Long Distance target shoot. The target is a circle of diameter, and the firing line is away. Three darts are fired by each shooter, at least one of which must stick in the target. All successful shooters move to the next round, moving back each time.

The sport blowgun competition is managed by the International Fukiyado Association, with which national associations in the United States, France, Germany and the Philippines are affiliated.

Gallery

File:COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Dajak met blaasroer TMnr 10013424.jpg, A Dayak man using a blowgun, Dutch East Indies, circa 1920
File:Rivercane blowgun quiver shawna cain.jpg, Rivercane quiver with blowgun darts, fletched with bull thistle
File:Blowgun demonstration in Oconaluftee Indian Village, Cherokee, North Carolina.jpg, Demonstration of Eastern Cherokee blowgun in Oconaluftee Indian Village, Cherokee, North Carolina
File:Achuar con cerbatana (Amazonía Ecuatoriana).jpg, An Achuar man with a blowgun, Ecuador
File:JacaltekMayaBlowgun.jpg, A Jakaltek Maya holds a clay pellet between his lips as he prepares to insert it into his blowgun in Guatemala.
File:BlowgunJacaltekMaya.jpg, A Jakaltek Maya hunter aims at the eye of his target and then blows a clay pellet towards it.
File:Proffits champetres 9.jpg, Illustration c. 1480 of Medieval Europeans using a blowgun to hunt birds.

Materials

Darts are typically made of hardwoods to prevent cracking, although bamboo skewers can be used informally. The dart's fletch can be made of many materials, such as down, feather tips, and animal fur. Modern materials, such as aluminium or carbon-reinforced plastic, are also used.

In Japan, the competition darts are made of cellophane rolled into a cone (Fukiya), topped with a non-pointed brass brad. The Japan Sports Fukiya Association JSFA has privatized the sport, and all materials must be purchased from them. International Fukiya Association IFA chairman H.Higuchi promotes worldwide blowgun rule cooperating with other countries.

In other nations, the modified piano wire is used to make the  cal and  cal darts, with certain manufacturers making specialty darts for odd sized or larger caliber barrels ( cal,  cal,  cal, and  cal).

Use of home-made darts in the larger sizes, or for hunting is common, utilizing bamboo skewers ( diameter), wire coat hangers, and even nails, or knitting needles.

Specifications

As a primitive weapon, there are no set dimension for a blowgun's length and diameter. However, generally there are several sizes:
# Fukidake — diameter is  cal in Japan. Tournament length is , but for practice one can use a tube. No mouthpiece is used; users wrap their lips around the tube. International versions can be slightly more flexible, allowing a tube of and  cal under IFA rules. Darts consist of a paper cone long, weighing .
# Cherokee – made of river cane, . Dart is long and made of locustwood or other available hardwoods such as oak, ash, maple, walnut, etc., fletched with thistle down or rabbit fur, that provides an air seal.
# Jakaltek — wooden blowgun averages long with a sight placed from the end. Clay pellets are the most common type of ammunition and clay is sometimes added under the sight when the diameter of the blowgun is too thin for more stability and a better aim.
# Modern (US/EU) — typically has a diameter of  cal, however, both the  cal and  cal are admitted for competitive shooting, with restrictions on barrel length and darts dimensions/weight; with varying lengths having distance restrictions imposed. Bell-shaped mouthpiece. Standard length limited to in IFA sanctioned competition.
# Paintball marker — made to be identical to the size of a  cal paintball.
# Sumpit — usually about in length and in diameter. It is made from bamboo or wood, and can a single piece or two to three pieces joined together. Metal spearheads are uniquely commonly affixed at the tip, allowing them to also be used as stabbing weapons. They use thick short darts with soft cork plugs or resin-coated feathers or fibers at the blunt end. Bird-hunting versions can use clay pellets.

Legality

A law was passed in Guatemala in the 1930s outlawing the use of the blowgun in an effort to protect small game. It was difficult to enforce in rural areas, but was one of the reasons for the decline of blowgun use in Guatemala.

In the United Kingdom under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and in Australia, the blowgun is categorized as an offensive weapon, and as such it is illegal to manufacture, sell or hire or offer for sale or hire, expose or have in one's possession for the purpose of sale or hire, or lend or give to any other person. Antique blowguns are, however, exempt.

In Canada, the blowgun is classified as a prohibited weapon and is defined as any device that "being a tube or pipe designed for the purpose of shooting arrows or darts by the breath". Any imported blowgun must be deactivated by either drilling a hole or by blocking it.

In the Republic of Ireland, blowpipes (blow guns) are classified as illegal offensive weapons.

In the US State of California, blowguns are illegal. They are also illegal in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, but are legal elsewhere. There is currently no age requirement for using a blowgun.

Poisoned darts

Shooting darts with a blowgun is an extremely stealthy, and even lethal, hunting technique if the darts are poisoned with plant extracts or animal secretions. In Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, some isolated areas in South America, and in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, blowgun hunters impregnate the tips of their darts with ''curare''. The explorer Joseph Gumilla first mentioned the use of this poison. In ancient literature, it's also referred to as ''uiraêry'', ''uirary'', ''uraré'', ''woorara'', and ''wourali''.

The Ticuas, an ethnic group from Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, produce a type of ''curare'' called ''Ticuna''. This poison acts quickly on the prey, killing birds like the toucan in a matter of three to four minutes and small monkeys in about eight to ten minutes.

In the Orinoco basin, the blowgun and curare are used by: the Hoti, who make blowguns that are unique in their components; the Panare, who obtain blowguns from the Hoti; the Huottuja, or Piaroa, who get their blowguns from the Yekuana or Maquiritares; the Maquiritare, who get their ''curare'' from the Piaroa; and the Pemones, who also get their blowguns from the Yekuana or Maquiritares, though they make their own ''curare''.

In the upper Rio Negro basin, the combination of blowguns and poisoned darts is used by the Curripacos, or Banivas, who make their own blowguns using technology and materials different, in part, from those of the ethnic groups of the Orinoco. They also produce their own ''curare''. Their ancestors, the Waodani, used a match known as ''kakapa'' along with the ''curare'' to impregnate the darts of their blowpipes.

The Piaroa are known for making ''curare'' to impregnate the darts of their blowguns. They produce it beginning with extracts of different species of plants from the Strychnos genus- mainly ''maracure'' (Strychnos crevauxii)- mixed with ''kraraguero'' sap to increase the adhesion of the poison. An animal hit by a dart poisoned using the Piaroa recipe usually dies within fifteen minutes, depending on its body mass.

In the Philippines, Borneo, and Sulawesi, the sumpit (or sumpitan) blowgun darts are typically coated in the sap of ''Antiaris toxicaria'' (''upas'') which causes convulsions and death by cardiac arrest. Uniquely among blowguns, sumpit are also commonly tipped with metal spearheads for use in close combat or when the ammunition is exhausted, functionally similar to bayonets.

The Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia use the concentrated sap of ''Antiaris toxicaria'' (Malay : ipoh) to coat the point of their darts.

See also

*Fukiya, Japanese blowgun
* Loire-style blowgun (French page)
* Sumpitan (weapon)

References

Further reading

*Speck, Frank G. "The Cane BlowGun in Catawba and Southeastern Ethnology" in ''American Anthropologist'' 40:2 (Apr.-Jun., 1938), pp. 198–204.
*Sustak, David. 2007. Fukiyado: The Way of the Sport Blowgun. 258 pp.
*Juan F. Marino, Sumpitan - Il Grande Libro della Cerbottana (le origini, la storia, la tecnica, lo sport), Edarc Edizioni, 2007 (only in Italian). 273 pp.
*
*Marinas, Amante P. Sr. 1999. "Pananandata Guide To Sport Blowguns." 110 pp.

External links

The Blowgun ForumLefora Blowgun ForumFrance Sarbacane Sport AmateurDeutscher Blasrohr Sport ClubInternational Fukiyado AssociationJapan Sports Fukiya AssociationUnited States Blowgun Association Hunting by more natural methods
from ''The Smoky Mountain News''

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Ancient weapons
Recreational weapons
Primitive weapons
Pneumatic weapons
Indigenous weapons of the Americas