Iron Arrow Points - If They Could Only Talk

Figure One - Iron arrow points from the 19th century, surface found on private land in Wyoming and Colorado. I believe the four arrow points on the right were Indian-made.  

John Bradford Branney Collection.   

I wrote my historical fiction book titled SAND and SAGE in 2020. SAND and SAGE's story focused on the coming of age of three boys and an Indian girl sometime around the year A.D. 1680. That was a tumultuous time in American history, especially in the Spanish colony of New Mexico where the Pueblo Indians revolted against their Spanish oppressors. Caught up in the chaos, two Spanish brothers were separated after the Indians destroyed their home and family with each brother facing challenges and life-or-death circumstances.  

At the same time and north of New Mexico in a land we now call Wyoming, an Indian boy struggled to find his standing within his tribe. The boy was destined for greatness when he discovered something so remarkable that it would forever change the lives of his people. However, the boy faced naysayers within the tribe who did not want the boy to succeed and fulfill his prophecy. 

The SAND and SAGE story lands the two Spanish boys, the Indian boy, and an Indian girl on a collision course and it takes an animal to unite them in a common cause. 

Hang on to your saddle horn for this fast-paced adventure!

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When the Europeans arrived in North America they introduced American Indians to many things such as cloth materials, wool blankets, horses, firearms, metal tools, cooking pots, skillets, and weapons. The list was endless. One of the items that the Europeans traded to the Indians was iron arrow points which in many cases replaced the stone arrow points the Indians were using at the time.  

As early as 1700, the Comanche tribe traded for thousands of iron arrow points from the Spaniards (Hamm 1991:132). According to Linton (1940), the Comanche Indians were at first eager to obtain muskets from the Europeans, but once that novelty wore off, they returned to the bow and arrow for hunting and war. While the muskets possessed a greater firing range, the firearms were cumbersome, hard to reload on horseback, and brandished a much lower rate of fire. According to Carter (1935) and Marcy (1938), a Comanche warrior could hit an object the size of a doorknob four out of five times at fifty yards away with a bow and arrow. Once repeating rifles became available to the Comanche Indians, they shifted away from the bow and arrow. 

Figure One is a photograph of several iron arrow points from my collection used by the Plains Indians. All of them were surface found on private land in Colorado and Wyoming. I believe Indians made the four iron points on the right based on the forms and apparent manufacturing processes. When European settlers showed up on the Great Plains, the Indians began fabricating iron arrow points from skillets and frying pans secured in trade or booty, or from brass kettles or barrel bands or parts of wagon wheels. The Indians created the iron points with steel tools they obtained from traders or settlers, and then sharpened the edges with files or grindstones. Hassrick (1964) wrote that many of the Indian-made iron points were fashioned in the forms of earlier stone arrow points. 

Mails (1972:425) proposed that war arrow points were made differently than hunting arrow points. In the case of war, the iron arrow points needed to be hard to remove from the wound, preferably with wide shoulders or barbs. The Indians attached war arrow points only slightly to the wooden arrow shaft. They wanted their victim to pull on the wooden shaft and leave the arrow point in the wound. The fourth points from the left in Figures One and Three are perfect examples of Mails's definition of war arrow points. In the case of a hunting arrow point, it was constructed and attached to the wooden shaft so that it could be easily removed from the wound and reused on the next hunt.       

Iron arrow points were an upgrade from the stone arrow points that the Indians used for the millennia prior to the arrival of the Europeans. Iron arrow points flew straight and true and were much more durable than their brittle stone equivalents. When a stone arrow point struck something hard like bone or rock it shattered while an iron arrow point could be usually bent back into shape. 

Figure Three - Examples of iron arrow points from my collection demonstrating the 
vast array in size and form. I believe that examples two and three were traded  
to the Indians while the rest were made by the Indians.  

How lethal was the bow and arrow in the nineteenth century? Pope (1923) reported tests that concluded that at a distance of ten yards, an obsidian-pointed arrow shot from a bow with a thirty-five-pound pull could penetrate thirty inches into animal tissue. Pope concluded that an arrow was as effective as a bullet when shot into the abdominal or chest area of the prey. Mails (1972) stated that tests with ancient plains bows indicated that an arrow attained a speed of around 150 feet per second while a pitched baseball at the time achieved around 60 feet per second. 

H. Henrietta Stockel (1995) stated that iron arrow points were particularly nasty to remove, and according to Indian War surgeons they were often worse to treat than gunshot wounds. During the winning of the West, army surgeons tried to perfect ways of removing the thin iron points from open wounds but there was no single way to do it. Each case was different with separate challenges, and with the risk of infection high during the Indian Wars, a patient was lucky to survive a serious arrow wound. 

Not only were iron arrow points thin, but they were also pliable and when they struck a victim’s body at a high velocity they could bend and cause immediate damage to tissue, blood vessels, organs, and bone. After the initial impact, the victim's blood bathed the animal sinew that Indians used to attach arrow points to the wooden shaft of the arrow. When the porous sinew absorbed the blood or other bodily fluids, swelling and stretching of the sinew occurred. If the victim pulled on the wooden shaft to remove the arrow point, the arrow point could separate from the wooden shaft and remain in the wound. If the arrow point remained in the wound long enough, the victim's muscles contracted around it, trapping that sharp piece of metal in the body. Those circumstances made it even more challenging for the surgeon to remove. 

Figure Four - Target practice, courtesy of Lightning Stick by H. Henrietta Stockel.

According to army surgeons during the nineteenth-century Indian Wars, iron arrow points were the cause of some of the worst wounds to treat. When a thin and pliable iron arrow point struck something hard in the body of the victim, such as bone, the iron often bent like an accordion making extraction of the arrow point even more difficult and painful to remove.

There are numerous accounts of extracting arrow points from victims in Lightning Stick by H. Henrietta Stockel (1995), but you better have a strong stomach when you read some of those accounts. I suggest you read the book right before or after you read my SAND and SAGE book! The arrow wounds were nasty and the surgery was quite primitive as compared to modern practices and tools. We have to remember there were no ambulances to rush victims to hospitals where well-trained surgeons performed operations. Some of the wounded actually died from the treatment, or lack of treatment, and not the iron arrow point itself.

One of the more severe places on the human body for arrow wounds was the abdomen or chest areas, where vital organs and blood vessels congregate. Fatal infection usually occurred when an arrow point pierced an intestine. This was especially true before the advent of antibiotics. When fighting Indians, the Spaniards, and Mexicans often wrapped their torsos with thick blankets to slow down or stop arrow points from reaching the abdomen while warriors from rival tribes often protected their abdomens by wrapping their torsos with thick and durable animal hides.

Figure Five - Iron arrow points that I found as a teenager in eastern Wyoming in the 

late early 1970s. John Bradford Branney Collection.    

Figure Five is a photograph of three iron arrow points that I surface found on private land in the Rawhide Buttes area of Niobrara County, Wyoming. I believe the arrow point on the left was Indian-made. If you look closely at the stem of that point, you will notice a vertical tool mark on the left stem edge. The two arrow points on the right were typical trade arrow points (Hothem: 2003:139). Note the serrations on the stem edges on those arrow points and the sharpening along the blade edges done via filing or grindstone.  

I rarely find iron arrow points anymore. Most surviving iron arrow points have either been found or rusted away in the soil. The last iron arrow point I found was in 2019 in northeastern Colorado and it was barely recognizable and in pretty rough shape. Iron arrow points are truly a rarity, and I can just imagine the true life stories behind each and every one of them. If they could only talk.   

References Cited 

Carter, R. G. 1935. On the Border with MacKenzie. Enyon Print Co. Washington D.C. 

Hamm, Jim. 1991. Bows and Arrows of the Native Americans. The Lyons Press. Guilford.  

Hassrick, Royal. 1964. The Sioux. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman. 

Hothem, Lar. 2003. Indian Trade Relics: Identification and Values. Collector Books. Paducah. 

Linton, R. 1940. Acculturation in Seven Indian Tribes. D. Appleton-Century Co. New York. 

Mails, T.E. 1972. The Mystic Warriors of the Plains. Mallard Press. New York.  

Marcy, R. B. 1938. Adventure on Red River. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman. 

Pope, S. T. 1923. A Study of Bows and Arrows in University Publications of American Archaeology and Ethnology. 13(9):329-414. 

Stockel, Henrietta H. 1995. The Lightning Stick - Arrows, Wounds, and Indian Legends. University of Nevada Press. Reno.  

In my book SAGE and SAND, I have my share of arrow, 

musket, and knife wounds. Who survives? Who doesn't? 

Read SAGE and SAND for the rest of the story.

    

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About the Author

The historical fiction novels written by John Bradford Branney are known for their impeccable research and biting realism. In his latest blockbuster novel Beyond the Campfire, Branney catapults his readers back into Prehistoric America where they reunite with some familiar faces from Branney’s best-selling prehistoric adventure series the Shadows on the Trail Pentalogy.

John Bradford Branney holds a geology degree from the University of Wyoming and an MBA from the University of Colorado. John lives in the Colorado mountains with his wife, Theresa. Beyond the Campfire is the eleventh published book by Branney.