The Bow and the Arrow as Symbols

The power and beauty of the bow and arrow led to the widespread belief that they must possess some magical or spiritual power. This power naturally lent itself to protection from evil spirits and symbols of power and authority. Every culture that used the bow and arrow developed these ritual and symbolic uses, but I can only mention a few here.

For the Western Turks, the arrow served as a sign of authority. Their tribes were divided into ten sub-tribes referred to as the Ten Arrows. The leader of each Arrow received an Arrow of Authority from the paramount chief as symbolic proof of office. The paramount chief could recall the arrow and give it to another as punishment. He could also declare war by calling the Ten Arrows to gather in the “quiver of the tribe.”

Arrowheads were also issued among some Turkish tribes as symbols of authority. These arrowheads were affixed to official statements made in wood or ivory in much the same way that Europeans used wax seals.

Scythians reportedly licked the point of an arrow and rammed it into the ground with the point facing skyward as a ritual solidifying any agreement.

Because bows and arrows were seen as divine, they appear frequently in legends where extremely heavy bows can only be drawn by semidivine beings. The Hindu epic poem, the Mahabharata, tells of the beautiful princess Draupadi whose father demanded that any suitor string a great bow and shoot five arrows in succession through a spinning wheel into a target. If he failed at any step, the suitor would forfeit his life. Only the divine Arjuna could succeed and claim Draupadi as his wife.

The Greek story of Odysseus, King of Ithaca is well-known in the West. He returned home after twenty years of wandering to find that his wife Penelope besieged by fifty suitors. Odysseus secretly met with his son Telemachus and arranged a trial for the suitors. They had to string Odysseus’s war bow and shoot an arrow through the open throats of twelve axe heads set in a row. All the suitors failed until Odysseus entered the hall, dressed as a beggar. He effortlessly strung the bow and shot an arrow through the axes. He then used the bow to kill the suitors.

Scythians rode their horses into the eye of thunderstorms and shot arrows into the sky in the belief that this offering of arrows would ensure the fertility of the grasslands for their horses in future seasons. They also buried their dead upright with a strung and drawn bow with an arrow on the string in their hands. (Burke, The History of Archery, 36-39; 92-95)

The Japanese Samurai, who were first and foremost mounted archers, also imbued the bow and arrow with magical power. The emperor created a special guard unit of archers called Takiguchi, whose job was to patrol the palace and protect the emperor from dangerous spiritual powers. One of their duties was the “the meigen (sighing bowstring) or Tsuru-uchi (striking the bowstring), which involved drawing and releasing of bowstrings without shooting arrows. This was performed at regular hours throughout the night, and on such occasions as births, illnesses, thunderclaps or other inauspicious omens, and—intriguingly—prior to the emperor’s entry to his bath…Rights such as meigen reflect a belief that the bow was more than just a prosaic weapon, that it was a magical instrument with power to drive away evil spirits and disperse ghosts.” (Friday, Samurai, Warfare and the State, 32-33)

If you know of any other interesting symbolic use of bows and arrows, please let me know.

I infused my Archer of the Heathland series with lots of archery lore. You can get started with the series for free by reading the prequel Intrigue.

If you prefer audiobooks, you can get it here for free.

Cheers,

James