|
Blowgun
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 and aboriginal peoples of East 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 h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arrow Poison
Arrow poisons are used to poison arrow heads or darts for the purposes of hunting and warfare. They have been used by indigenous peoples worldwide and are still in use in areas of South America, Africa and Asia. Notable examples are the poisons secreted from the skin of the poison dart frog, and curare (or 'ampi'), a general term for a range of plant-derived arrow poisons used by the indigenous peoples of South America. History Poisoned arrows have featured in mythology, notably the Greek story of Heracles slaying the centaur Nessus using arrows poisoned with the blood of the Lernaean Hydra. The Greek hero Odysseus poisons his arrows with hellebore in Homer's ''Odyssey''. Poisoned arrows also figure in Homer's epic about the Trojan War, the ''Iliad'', in which both Achaeans and Trojans used toxic arrows and spears. Poisoned arrows were known to be used by many ancient civilizations, including the Gauls, Scythians, and Svans. Ancient Greek and Roman historians describe recipe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shooting
Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missiles can be considered acts of shooting. When using a firearm, the act of shooting is often called firing as it involves initiating a combustion ( deflagration) of chemical propellants. Shooting can take place in a shooting range or in the field, in shooting sports, hunting, or in combat. The person involved in the shooting activity is called a shooter. A skilled, accurate shooter is a ''marksman'' or ''sharpshooter'', and a person's level of shooting proficiency is referred to as their ''marksmanship''. Competitive shooting Shooting has inspired competition, and in several countries rifle clubs started to form in the 19th century. Soon international shooting events evolved, including shooting at the Summer and Winter Olympics (from 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Curare
Curare ( or ; or ) is a common name for various alkaloid arrow poisons originating from plant extracts. Used as a paralyzing agent by indigenous peoples in Central and South America for hunting and for therapeutic purposes, curare only becomes active when it contaminates a wound or is introduced directly to the bloodstream; it is not active when ingested orally. Curare is prepared by boiling the bark of one of the dozens of plant sources, leaving a dark, heavy paste that can be applied to arrow or dart heads. These poisons cause weakness of the skeletal muscles and, when administered in a sufficient dose, eventual death by asphyxiation due to paralysis of the diaphragm. In medicine, curare has been used as a treatment for tetanus and strychnine poisoning and as a paralyzing agent for surgical procedures. History The word 'curare' is derived from , from the Carib language of the Macusi of Guyana. It has its origins in the Carib phrase "mawa cure" meaning of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yahua Blowgun Amazon Iquitos Peru
Yagua are an indigenous people in Colombia and northeastern Peru, numbering approximately 6,000. Currently, they live near the Amazon, Napo, Putumayo and Yavari rivers and their tributaries. As of 2005, some Yagua have migrated northward to Colombia, near the town of Leticia. Location Currently the Yagua live in some 30 communities scattered throughout a section of the Peruvian and Colombian Amazon basin which can roughly be described as a rectangle 200 miles wide and 350 miles long (70,000 sq. miles) extending southward from the second to the fifth parallel and westward from the 70th to the 75th meridian west. Language The Yagua language is classified as a Peba-Yaguan language. The only closely related languages that have been documented are Peba and YameoEspinosa 1955 both of which are now extinct. 2000 Yagua people in Peru were monolingual in 2000, and of these, 75% were women and 25% were men. The majority of the rest are bilingual in Spanish to varying degrees. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dart (missile)
Darts are airborne ranged weapons. They are designed to fly such that a sharp, often weighted point will strike first. They can be distinguished from javelins by the presence of fletching (feathers on the tail) and a shaft that is shorter or more flexible. Darts can be propelled by hand or with the aid of a hand-held implement such as a blowgun. They can be distinguished from arrows because they are not used with a Bow and arrow, bow. Darts have been used since pre-history. The plumbatae were lead-weighted darts thrown by infantrymen in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Darts can be propelled by a number of means. The atlatl uses leverage to increase the velocity of the dart, the kestros (weapon), kestros increases the range of propelled darts using a sling, and the exhalation of a person's breath through a blowgun propels small stone points or poisoned needles with pneumatic force. In the modern era, darts have been used for recreation in lawn darts and the game of darts. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Projectile
A projectile is an object that is propelled by the application of an external force and then moves freely under the influence of gravity and air resistance. Although any objects in motion through space are projectiles, they are commonly found in warfare and sports (for example, a thrown baseball, kicked football, fired bullet, shot arrow, stone released from catapult). In ballistics, mathematical equations of motion are used to analyze projectile trajectories through launch, flight, and impact. Motive force Blowguns and pneumatic rifles use compressed gases, while most other guns and cannons utilize expanding gases liberated by sudden chemical reactions by propellants like smokeless powder. Light-gas guns use a combination of these mechanisms. Railguns utilize electromagnetic fields to provide acceleration along the entire length of the device, greatly increasing the muzzle velocity. Some projectiles provide propulsion during flight by means of a rocket ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and northwestern part of Costa Rica. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. In the pre-Columbian era, many Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous societies flourished in Mesoamerica for more than 3,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas began on Hispaniola in 1493. In world history, Mesoamerica was the site of two historical transformations: (i) primary urban generation, and (ii) the formation of New World cultures from the mixtures of the indigenous Mesoamerican peoples with the European, African, and Asian peoples who were introduced by the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoameri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-Columbian Era
In the history of the Americas, the pre-Columbian era, also known as the pre-contact era, or as the pre-Cabraline era specifically in Brazil, spans from the initial peopling of the Americas in the Upper Paleolithic to the onset of European colonization of the Americas, European colonization, which began with Christopher Columbus's voyage in 1492. This era encompasses the history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous cultures prior to significant European influence, which in some cases did not occur until decades or even centuries after Columbus's arrival. During the pre-Columbian era, many civilizations developed permanent settlements, cities, agricultural practices, civic and monumental architecture, major Earthworks (archaeology), earthworks, and Complex society, complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had declined by the time of the establishment of the first permanent European colonies, around the late 16th to early 17th centuries, and are know ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight Bird skeleton, skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 Order (biology), orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have Bird wing, wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the Flightless bird, loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemism, endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Squirrel
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae (), a family that includes small or medium-sized rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squirrels are indigenous to the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa, and were introduced by humans to Australia. The earliest known fossilized squirrels date from the Eocene epoch, and among other living rodent families, the squirrels are most closely related to the mountain beaver and dormice. Etymology The word ''squirrel'', first attested in 1327, comes from the Anglo-Norman which is from the Old French , the reflex of a Latin language">Latin word , which was taken from the Ancient Greek word (; from ) 'shadow-tailed', referring to the long bushy tail which many of its members have. ''Sciurus'' is also the name of one of its genuses. The native Old English language, Old English word for the squirrel, , only survived into Middle Eng ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guianas
The Guianas, also spelled Guyanas or Guayanas, are a geographical region in north-eastern South America. Strictly, the term refers to the three Guianas: Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana, formerly British Guiana, British, Surinam (Dutch colony), Dutch, and French Guiana respectively. Broadly, it refers to the South American coast from the mouth of the Orinoco to the mouth of the Amazon. Politically it is divided into: * Spanish or Venezuelan Guiana, now the Delta Amacuro, Delta Amacuro State and Guayana Region of Venezuela. * Guyana, formerly British Guiana, independent since 1966. * Suriname, formerly Surinam (Dutch colony), Dutch Guiana, independent since 1975. * French Guiana, an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of French Fifth Republic, France. * Brazilian or Portuguese Guiana, now the Amapá, Amapá State of Brazil. The three Guianas proper have a combined population of 1,718,651; Guyana: 804,567, Suriname: 612,985, and French ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated form of livestock, and a pet, having a widespread effect on ecologies and cultures. The most widespread rabbit genera are '' Oryctolagus'' and '' Sylvilagus''. The former, ''Oryctolagus'', includes the European rabbit, ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'', which is the ancestor of the hundreds of breeds of domestic rabbit and has been introduced on every continent except Antarctica. The latter, ''Sylvilagus'', includes over 13 wild rabbit species, among them the cottontails and tapetis. Wild rabbits not included in ''Oryctolagus'' and ''Sylvilagus'' include several species of limited distribution, including the pygmy rabbit, volcano rabbit, and Sumatran striped rabbit. Rabbits are a paraphyletic grouping, and do not constitute a clade, as ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
