The peashooter (sometimes spelled pea-shooter or pea shooter) is a toy version of the blowgun or blowpipe. It is usually a tube that launches its projectiles via blowing. As the name suggests the normal ammunition is

pea Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum' ...

s (usually dried), though other seeds, fruits, improvised darts, or wadded up paper can also be used.

History

The pinturas de castas (casta paintings) are a rare glimpse into the daily life of ordinary people in 18th century

colonial Mexico Colonial or The Colonial may refer to: * Colonial, of, relating to, or characteristic of a colony or colony (biology) Architecture * American colonial architecture * French colonial architecture * Spanish colonial architecture Automobiles * C ...

. They reveal how different races and classes interacted, dressed, worked, and played. Some of these paintings show the toys that children used, including a depiction of a boy with a peashooter and visible projectile.

Peashooting

Peashooting (sometimes spelled pea-shooting or pea shooting) is the act of shooting dried

s out of a tube, a peashooter, by blowing through it. A similar effect can be achieved by using small bits of

paper Paper is a thin sheet material produced by mechanically or chemically processing cellulose fibres derived from wood, Textile, rags, poaceae, grasses, Feces#Other uses, herbivore dung, or other vegetable sources in water. Once the water is dra ...

instead of peas. A sport has developed around pea shooting, in which peas are shot into a target, similar to those used for

archery Archery is the sport, practice, or skill of using a Bow and arrow, bow to shooting, shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 The word comes from the Latin ''arcus'', meaning bow. Historically, archery has been used for hunting ...

. The target may be made of a soft substance (putty) so that the peas will stick into it or at least make indentations that easily identify the location of the hit. The World Pea Shooting Championships are held annually in the village of

Witcham Witcham is a small village near Ely in Cambridgeshire, England. The village is surrounded by fenland farms and has a village hall and a 13th-century church dedicated to St Martin. It has a pub called the White Horse, which was the winner of t ...

, UK.

Other usage

* The

Boeing P-26 Peashooter The Boeing P-26 "Peashooter" is the first American production all-metal fighter aircraft and the first pursuit monoplane to enter squadron service with the United States Army Air Corps. Designed and built by Boeing, the prototype first flew in 1 ...

, a

fighter aircraft Fighter aircraft (early on also ''pursuit aircraft'') are military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air supremacy, air superiority of the battlespace. Domina ...

, was nicknamed the shooter of peas because it has no visible armament (it had two machine guns on the floor of the cockpit shooting through the propeller). It did, however, have a long tube

gunsight A sight or sighting device is any device used to assist in precise visual alignment (i.e. ''aiming'') of weapons, surveying instruments, aircraft equipment, optical illumination equipment or larger optical instruments with the intended target. ...

just forward of the

windscreen The windshield (American English and Canadian English) or windscreen (Commonwealth English) of an aircraft, car, bus, motorbike, truck, train, boat or streetcar is the front window, which provides visibility while protecting occupants from t ...

that appeared to be its only armament. * In the video game

Plants vs. Zombies ''Plants vs. Zombies'' is a video game Media franchise, franchise developed by PopCap Games, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts (EA). The series follows the affiliates of David "Crazy Dave" Blazing as they use his plants to defend against a zombi ...

, there is a character called the Peashooter who attacks zombies with

peas Pea (''pisum'' in Latin) is a pulse or fodder crop, but the word often refers to the seed or sometimes the pod of this flowering plant species. Peas are eaten as a vegetable. Carl Linnaeus gave the species the scientific name ''Pisum sativum ...

References

External links

* Games and sports introduced in 1970 Toy weapons {{toy-stub