The wood generally used in manufacturing bows is ash, hickory, iron-wood, elm, and cedar. No hickory grows west of the Missouri, and it is very difficult to get; and an Indian will always pay a high price for a piece of this wood.
When the bow is made of cedar, it need not be seasoned; but all other woods require seasoning, and are not worked until perfectly dry. Every teepee has its bow-wood hung up with the arrows in the smoke of the fire well out of reach of the flames. A warrior with a sharp knife and a sandstone, or file, can make a bow in three days if he works hard, but it generally takes a week, and sometimes a month, to finish a fancy bow. When done, it is worth three dollars in trade.
All the bows differ in length and strength, being gauged for the arms of those who are to use them; but a white man would, until he learned the trick of it, find himself unable to bend even the weakest war-bow. This has given rise to the impression that the Indians are stronger than white men, which is an error; for, although only a slight man myself, I learned, after some practice, to bend the strongest bow, and could send a shaft as far or as deep as any savage. On one occasion I shot an arrow, while running, into a buffalo so that the point came out on the opposite side; another arrow disappeared in the buffalo, not even the notch being visible. I have seen a bow throw an arrow five hundred yards, and have myself often discharged one entirely through a board one inch thick. Once I found a man's skull transfixed to a tree by an arrow which had gone completely through the bones, and imbedded itself so deep in the wood as to sustain the weight of the head. He had probably been tied up to the tree and shot.
The surface of the bow is made perfectly flat, then roughened with a file or stone, the sinew being dipped in hot glue and laid on the wood. The sinew is then lapped at the ends and on the middle or grasp of the bow. The string is attached while green, twisted, and left to dry on the bow. The whole outside of the wood and sinew is now covered with a thick solution of glue, and the bow is done. Rough bows look like hickory limbs with the bark on, but some of them are beautifully painted and ornamented. I once knew a trader to glue some red velvet on a bow, and the Indians paid him an immense price for it, thinking it very wonderful.