Native American STONE MACE: How Was it Used?
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- čas přidán 13. 04. 2023
- Looking at the Native American stone-headed war club, or mace. The precursor to the tomahawk, here we look at their effectiveness and possible use.
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really cool to see this!
my tribe is an eastern woodlands tribe, and from the talks with our own historians, our war clubs were purely wooden ones. However, they were all from a very specific species of tree that was just called the "war club tree" (can't remember what tree species at the moment), AND they were carved from the tree so that the "head" of the war club was a natural knot of wood and was rounded off into as close to a sphere as they could get while the shaft was kept largely straight.
Our tribe's own lacrosse sticks (different than what is widely used in the sport today) mirrored the design of our war clubs, which has lead to a lot of research into how our tribe's version of lacrosse gamified training for combat and what similarities and differences would exist with how the lacrosse stick and war club were used!
Edit: asked a tribal elder and he said the war club tree was a Hackberry, although Sugar Maple was also used. He also said Mulberry was the bow tree, although hickory and Osage orange were also used. (Hackberry and Mulberry had names meaning war club and bow tree respectably, but that did mean only those were used)
Additional note: when I told my elder that this was about someone talking about plains tribe's stone head clubs being better than wooden clubs he said "Never argue with Lakotas" 😂
He also said that the ball head wooden clubs were made for the killing blow to the soft spot at the back of the head, and not for hand to hand combat.
Super interesting 🖖
The spirits bless your tribe!
Malcolm P.L would beg to differ on that last comment. He had a video on his thoughts on lacrosse sticks being used as a gamified version for war.
@@jonajo9757 Malcolm primarily covers Iroquois culture. My tribe is a Great Lake Algonquin tribe, and if you go back to his video on lacrosse sticks as weapon, the top comment from comes from an Ojibwe person (the Ojibwe are elder brothers to my tribe) discussing how Great Lakes Lacrosse differs from Iroquois Lacrosse.
As he says in that comment, the Great Lakes lacrosse sticks are designed to be used with one hand. To go into further detail on the stick design, our lacrosse sticks consist of a long shaft with a circular hoop of curved wood with a shallow pocket. It is offset to one side and not centered at the end of the shaft, not too dissimilar to the layout of a hockey stick or golf club. This greatly changes how the stick is used in game, as everything about catching, throwing, running with the ball, etc. is changed.
Our war clubs mirror this design, and one of my relatives wanted to investigate that connection as part of his capstone project in college. I will need to reach out to him and see what the results were.
@@jonathongoulding9780 cool.
The flexible war club you've got there is almost definitely the later period cavalry club of the Plains Tribes, who are known to have moved to a thinner, longer style of club with the advent of the horse. I would STRONGLY reccommend the book "Native North American Armor, Shields, and Fortifications" by David E Jones. If you want to explore Native American arms and armor, this is the foundation block.
The other thing you describe, that flexible shaft with a trailing load, is very similar to the principles of a Blackjack weapon. If you want to explore more about a whole family of forgotten impact weapons, I very highly reccomend fellow youtuber @ObjectHistory book " Saps, Blackjacks and Slungshots: A History of Forgotten Weapons ". There's a whole chapter in there dedicated to the flexible impact weapons of Native Americans.
I imagine the "springiness" would be useful in absorbing the shock if using it from horseback
@@andrewroberts8959 In essence i agree with you and the broader meme that flexible impact weapons are useful from horseback in that they minimise the painful hand shock you get from striking a target. But that is not the only advantage they give. This quote is instructive -
“Size is not the criteria in a go to blackjack; flexibility is. A light one with a good whip effect is more potent than one that weighs over a pound but has a flat spring that restricts its momentum.”
“Massad F. Ayoob, Fundamentals of Modern Police Impact Weapons (Concord: Police Bookshelf, 1984), 17.”
- Saps, Blackjacks and Slungshots: A History of Forgotten Weapons by Robert Escobar
The diminishing of hand shock is of course an advantage of flexible impact weapons, but not the only one. Matt touches on that whipping effect in the video, how it feels almost like a projectile launcher. When that whipping force is combined with the momentum of a horse, we now have a tremendously powerful striking weapon. The last line here is especially instructive.
“The older, relatively short war clubs were armed with a stone head and used with a hacking or slashing motion. The war club of later usage, designed for fighting from horseback, proved a much more powerful weapon and one of the reasons that helmets became so widespread among Plains warriors, particularly the Blackfoot, Shoshone, Crow, and Assiniboine, as well as more southerly Plains tribes. The handle of the modified war club measured 3 feet or more in length and was of a relatively small diameter. Likewise, the stone head was not particularly large but often ground to a point at both ends. Whirled in a circular motion to build up centrifugal force, the weapon was then aimed at the enemy and could crush the skull of a man or knock down a horse.”
- Native North American Armor, Shields, and Fortifications by David E. Jones
(Reposted without Amazon links on the citations so this comment isn’t flagged as spam)
seems like switch style handles had a strong use in weapons and tools in America. i got a few hammers and sledges from late 1800s that have switch handles. kind of an experts tool hit harder then anything else with less effort but if ya miss handle snaps right off you can hear about switch handles in songs and such to with tools. and i think the native Americans capitalized on using hickory as some of the best wood for such a purpose . in the 1800 you can find hickory used as springs when metal was hard to come by
But but but…history classes and Disney have told me that native Americans were peaceful and lived in complete harmony with the earth and its creatures until the arrival of the evol whyte man?!?! How can all this be?
@@KnightlyNerd I'm late in coming back to this but just wanted to say thanks for providing the full explanation
I imagine it involves some swinging.
Nope, you're way off: it's more like maneuvering, pivoting, and whipping. Swinging hardly plays a role. 😜
If you go swinging too much with another brave's squaw, then I imagine you might find these things going to work.
Nope. It's a stone club, not a Swinger Club. You perv.
It’s like a shillelagh to me. So cool
So this stone knob had other uses than just bashing?
I have been told, by my elders in Siksika, AB, Canada; for our group of Plains Peoples, the Blackfoot: We used different clubs for different jobs, kinda like golf. Even metal tomahawks, while very useful for many jobs, were only one of the tools used. As I was told, anyhow. I know of three designs: the thin long-handled one, the short thick-handled club no bigger than a music rattle, and a large two handed wooden club with a triangle point and recurved handle.
Is that past one the same thing as what’s called a “gun stock club?” I know that name was probably applied by Europeans because they didn’t know the proper name for it. I’m pretty sure one it was used by one of the characters in Last of the Mohicans (apologies for butchering the spelling)
@@alexanderren1097 That sounds like what he's describing
@@alexanderren1097 I was told(could be wrong)that the gun stock looking club was designed to imitate a musket when viewed from a distance(to discourage prospective attackers).
“Tools”? Or weapons?
@@andymetternich3428 this is widely debated. There are three possibilities.
1: What you said
2: Natives saw how well European firearms worked as clubs in a last ditch effort and decided to imitate them.
3: Total coincidence in appearance (which seems unlikely to me, however there's apparently some evidence that gun stock war clubs existed prior to Europeans in North America).
Native North American is very underdiscussed and fascinating. Definitely would love to see more content related
Something else to keep in mind here is that the Plains tribes, like the Comanche, Kiowa, Lakota, and Cheyenne, are horsemen, which means this style of "wild west" club is most often going to be used from horseback (as a sidearm to the warrior's lance), and typically alongside a bison skin shield--and, prior to guns, deer or bison hide armour, sometimes reinforced with glue and sand.
I remember this detail from my high school history textbook. 18th century European muskets and rifles couldn't really be used effectively from horseback, and even the pistols and carbines that could be were single-shot and couldn't really be reloaded from a moving horse. The Plains peoples' shields would have remained effective against sabres and tomahawks as well. It wasn't until the introduction of the Colt revolver in the 1830s, allowing multiple shots from horseback before reloading, that the shields and clubs really started to become obsolete.
what does the sand do?
i thought horses weren't native to the Americas
@@ramboturkey1926 They're not. In the 1680s, however, over a million Spanish horses got turned loose on the Plains. By the time any Europeans encounter the Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, or Lakota, decades later, they've become master horsemen.
Back when Asia was connected to NA, it's easy to see how quickly horses could spread everywhere.
They had already evolved a less sophisticated form of the "stay apparatus" too, so they could stand forever like horses.
I absolutely love this look into native American people's weapons. Learning about oral cultures from another continent presents its challenges. I would love to see more!
Matt what's your opinion on Native North American Armor, Shields and Fortifications by David E. Jones? He goes in quite a bit if detail of the different shields used by different regions. To me it was quite eye opening how advanced their practices were. Probably because of a less then accurate diet of Western books about Native American warfare.
I'd love a more in-depth video on the Northwest Pacific tribes like the Haida and Tlingit. Their (metal) shields, complex armor and iron swords.
If you'd like, a youtuber by Malcolm P.L made a recreation of a Huron wooden armor.
@@jonajo9757 Fucking cool, something to look up. Thanks
what region/period does he focus on?
@@emersonpage5384 15th and 16th century but the book in question covers the entirety of North America as vast as it is. He essentially divides it into ten regional clusters based on geography and martial practices.
@@mormacil oh, interesting. Sort of the pre- and circum-colonial eras
In the Disney movie "Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier" Davy Crockett duels against Chief Red Stick using tomahawks and war clubs like that one.
Good memories.
Well done Matt. You managed to say "big knob" without smirking. 😜
The context is that double entendres are as much Matt’s expertise as arms are.
Long read: I was in PNG in 2018, doing some medical mission work in the Western Provinces. I was taken out to a remote house that was still occupied by a man of around 74.
We know he was about that age because the day he was born, the village was overflown by a war plane.
His father thought that the big silver 'Bird' was a harbinger of an apocalypse, so born in the WWII era.
While we were talking (he in Pa; translated by his nephew) he reached into the rafters and produced an egg shaped lump of very hard rock about the size of a Mills Bomb.
It had two depressions at either end of the poles.
They resembled what you get if you put your finger in wet sand and draw a small circle. A trough with a dimple.
He asked me, if I knew what it was?
I had no idea.
He said it was a club. Meant to be mounted on a stick.
The way to make one was to shape the rock into an egg then get a lot of narrow bamboo, a pile of sand and some water.
Put wet sand inside the bamboo and put the tip on the rock and twirl it like a drill between your hands.
To bore all the way through took months.
It had only been worked on for a couple of weeks.
He asked me what it was used for?
I said, "Pigs"?
"No" he said. "To kill men, only for men".
He said that "when the white missionaries came and told them of Christ and of forgiveness and redemption, most just put the clubs away and stopped killing their neighbours.
So in around 1960 his unfinished club went into the shadows and stayed there.
I think if you look at these across tribal groups you will find that the handles are longer on the plains as the horse becomes more common and parallels the lance which loses some if it's defensive capability to maximize offense on horseback vs. the spear. Yes they werr used with rawhide shields much if the time. I know some warriors would carry more than one in order to be able to throw one and retain one. Also one advantage that Matt doesn't mention is that a stone head doesn't get stuck in the target as easily as a metal tomahawk. Finally, repair of these in the field is much easier than repair of a metal tomahawk and that would be valuable on a long hunt or an extended campaign.
Is that why Comanche lances are usually depicted as spikes at the end of a shaft, as opposed to a more typical spear head?
@@eldorados_lost_searcher they had many types of lance head. Commanche would take lots of things as tribute or as spoils so the heads would vary quite a lot. Their lances are often longer and thinner than most spears in order to gain reach from horseback while maintaining a controllable weight. They are often but not always depicted with a spike like tip but the identifiers are construction and decoration styles. Also keep in mind the availability of metal is not nearly as uniform accross time and geography as it was in Europe. Some people, at some times would reaerve metals for more practical tools like knives or tomahawk, or mocutogans. Lances and arrows and war clubs were important but not used nearly so often as knives, needles and wood working tools. Aside from rare copper, all metal had to be traded for with Europeans or very occasionally found with shipwrecks. Metalsmithing isn't really widely known until the 20th century so risking the loss of a metal tool is a big deal.
You should do more stuff on Pacific Northwest arms and (yes,) armour. Lots of interesting materials and a surprising amount of convergent evolution with copper and early iron age stuff in Europe and the ME.
Looking forward to the macuahuitl video Matt, cheers
It's nice to see a piece of native american weaponry, I rarely see them on display in local museums anymore. Especially varieties like this type of warclub, a simplistic but very effective tool. The way that the deer hides were prepared to bind it all together is something I learned about in a traditional culture course I got to try out, I've even seen native artists who are binding deer hides to jars and flower pots to give them a solid structure as well.
Fascinating work that can be done using the old traditional methods that aren't taught on the internet.
Softer shaft means it can absorb the recoil from the blow better and does not transfer down to your arm like it would with a much harder shaft.
I think you also get a whip effect like a golf club shaft to increase head speed at impact.
The original "lock in a sock" lol
@@MrJacksjb Head speed is determined by handle length. The whip effect can't deliver more energy than is put in.
Tennis elbow would be a bitch for a warrior. The flexible shaft would help prevent that.
@@666toysoldier I believe the mechanism is that while inertia on the head "delays" its movement energy is stored in the shaft. This energy release of the shaft straightening happens faster than the input which increases head speed. You are correct in the total energy must remain the same, so when I start to swing I generate kinetic energy in the head movement and potential energy in the shaft flexure, at the end some of this potential energy converts back to kinetic leading to increased head speed and higher kinetic energy.
It is sort of equivalent to shooting a bow and arrow, you slowly input energy into the system by drawing the bow and quickly release it by firing the arrow, the energy you stored in the bow is the same as what goes out.
I could be wrong, I have never studied this particular type of mechanism (swinging a flexible shaft with a weight on the end) but that is how I picture it.
I interviewed a Native American artist, Ernest Gendron, that makes these warclubs. A lot of comments pointed out the long rock-and-rawhide warclubs were favored on the Great Plains because of horseback warfare. Momentary contact so you had one blow and it had to count. But there are other reasons why these clubs had to have such great reach and momentum. There are accounts of Native American warriors using these stone-headed clubs against beasts-think injuring an opponent’s horse, or using it against a buffalo or bear. These weapons are definitely more potent than wooden warclubs-and feel more head heavy than some of the Tod Cutler medieval maces I have handled. Great video, look forward to more content. Best regards.
For anyone curious about the uses of shields and armor (and fortifications) among Indigenous Americans, I'd heavily recommend "Native North American Armor, Shields, and Fortifications" by David E. Jones.
I specialize in warfare on the Southern Northwest Coast and found his attempts at compiling information about the use of armor, shields, forts and castles alongside their evolution to be quite enlightening.
You should look at Maori Greenstone Mere, warclubs, such beautiful things made for killing and as a status symbol.
Can we pause a moment to appreciate how perfectly pill-shaped the stone in that hammer example is. 😆
Now that you've opened this can of native worms, I've always been fascinated by the weapons of the Aztec and Inca empires, and the surprising amount of organization and structure the Inca military had. Unlike many of their northern natives the Inca did work metal, they had bronze halberds and star headed maces. And we all know the more famous Aztec weapons too.
Macuahuitl are awesome.
Metal working was done up north, but it was often through cold working native copper.
@@jonajo9757 sometimes meteoric iron too.
@@yamiyomizuki That too.
Please cover ball headed clubs. Used in eastern woodlands and on plains. Very cool.
Would love to see more new world features, especially the macuahuitl as it seems quite a unique assembly. And an obsidian sword/axe just sounds cool!
Seconded!
Even as you started talking about the difficulty of parrying with this type of club, I was thinking surly they use their shield to defend. The use of shields by plains Indians (native Americans) almost seems as synonymous as the use of tomahawks, or in this case war clubs.
Don’t see many mace parries either.
The stone heads are often pointed on each end. Some of the war club heads I have seen in museums are much smaller than the one Matt has. My thought is that with flexible shaft, the clubs had an action similar to a golf club. That is to say, the flex in the shaft added to increased velocity at the time of impact.
The shields were part of the "medicine" of a warrior. They had symbolic and "magical" significance as well as practical significance. Perhaps the same is true of the war clubs.
Agree. Plus the thin flexible handle changes the center of gravity so the head gets even more ‘whippy’
Even smaller than this??
I wonder how they even managed to kill each other
You can easily just come forward and take this toy away from the fierce warrior 😂
@@hulking_presence
Another post from a member of the Blackfoot mentioned that they used different clubs and axes for different uses.
I imagine it's the difference between a hatchet, axe, tomahawk, and club. Each one can be used for general uses, but are optimized for specific tasks.
Besides, as yet another post stated, in some cultures the object was to aim for the back of the head, which doesn't take as much force to crack open.
The scalp-hunters in Cormac McCarthy's _Blood Meridian_ are described as using a club with a small stone head - from a river-bed I think - attached to a flexible reed shaft and bound together with rawhide. They favour this weapon for running down fleeing people on horseback and making a quick, whipping, strike with little effort - due to the flexible shaft. This drops the victim with a depressed skull fracture without damaging the valuable scalp. _Blood Meridian_ is not an easy or pleasant read, it must be said.
@@hulking_presence in an actual fight against someone actually trying to kill you, you don't do anything easily.
I wonder if you could ever make a video about those fully wooden "saber" or "rifle stock" shaped warclubs. There's probably some interesting accounts about them as well.
Also, I think a big factor in all those headstrikes is they didn't really have the technology to make any decent head protection. Cultures of iron age and onward usually make sure the head is the most well armoured part, which is why strikes to other body parts, to disable the opponent, were more common.
However, using quilted helms is nothing they couldn´t have produced. Btw, the north coastal tribes used some kind of organic armour.
@@morriganmhor5078 I have heard about some basic armour existing and it's a topic I'd like to hear more about. However, it's probably still not as effective as what people with more advanced metalwork technology could produce.
some probably had clothe armor.
I should boiled and dried buffalo hide( over a wooden former) could be formed into a pretty good helmet.
@@patron8597 they could and did make helmets that were decent, but even a good metal helmet won't always save you if you get hit in the head with a lot of force.
Please explain more about it's construction.
Malcolm P.L. has a great short video on plains indian shields. You are spot on with the hide, but suprisingly they weren't over wood, buffalo hide was dried in a way that it would shrink and compress until it was nearly an inch thick, and that would be the shield
I like that you are talking about a weapon that is from mt part of the world...I've actually seen some one dig one out of the ground while out fishing, it was a decent sized stone with grooves cut in it to hold the straps that attached it to the handle, 1979-80 on the Great Plains in Canada.
I very much appreciate it when you cover American topics. Your reasoning always impresses. It must be your British education. BTW, Comanches used rawhide shields stuffed with newspaper to deflect balls from the Texas Rangers’ cap and ball revolvers mid nineteenth century.
Matt, It would be nice to see some fighting techniques for the warclub. Despite the so called simple idea that you hit the bad guy with the heavy end there is some complexity with a club. Just like hand to hand combat it is a big area to cover.
As for why stone? I think you covered it. stone is dense and cheaper than metals, is reasonably effective, is easy to fix, and holds a traditional value to those cultures that make it. Nice video.
stone is easy to replace, it's impossible to fix. also an important point is that just because you always aim to strike to the head, that doesn't mean you don't have a lot of complex options as to how you achieve that goal.
@@yamiyomizuki easier to fix the handle and features around the stone. and as you say its easy to replace.
And yes I agree you can do alot with a war club if your creative. Hence why I said there is some complexity to using a war club.
The flexibility of the stick should be useful when you use it on horse back, lower hit transfer to your arm as the stick absorb the hit
Matt, have you heard about the ancient, prehistoric Native American spears and atlatl arrows that have been found with their wood shafts INTACT in the runoff of a glacier?? I believe this was either in Alaska, or the Yukon area of Canada (I forget). Anyway, there's a documentary on YT about it, and I think you'd like it! We're talking Ice Age here!
I must say, the quality of the comments is amazing. This is what I think the internet is supposed to be!!
The Native American warriors also carried blocking sticks with ends that were hooked. The blocking stick could catch the head of a tomahawk or clubs similar to that. The blocking stick often had feathers on the shaft
Loving the native american weaponry videos. Please do continue!
Fascinating stuff. The flail comparison is really cool. Obviously this is still much more structured than a flail, but it's leveraging some of the same principles to create an almost whip-like impact, but of course with a big hunk of wood/metal on the end to give it that all-important punch.
Always enjoy your insights
An excellent analysis Matt.
Stone Maces were common here in the late neolithic/early bronze age. They were pierced for a shaft and polished and would have taken many, many hours to make.
Agreed, Maori had greenstone patu that took generations to polish and carve . I had a go at making a wooden patu (Maori single handed club) in last few weeks it didn't turn out perfect but it's ok for me and my first attempt
Really interesting, would love more on this type of weapon
Now, what I had heard was that skull-cracker clubs like these were made with greenwood (young) sticks to maximize the flexibility and they were used exclusively or mostly from horseback, the flex being used to mitigate handshock. If true, it's an interesting parallel to late medieval/renaissance European and Indo-Persian cavalry hammers and flails.
Brilliant and informative.
When you mention the thin stick handle it reminds me of some of the ww1 trench club’s that had springs built in.
Maybe it’s about energy transfer from the swing on the point of impact.
I read in a book, that Tatanka Iyotake (Sitting Bull), had a shield in his first fight, against another tribe and nation.
Probobly the shield saved his life.
One bullit was shot at him, and the sturdy leather shield did not stop the bullit, but redirect it down to the foot instead.
I do not remember all the details, but probobly not a bullit from a musket, possible from a carbine or pistol.
I found a double headed stone axe head in my backyard and a broken spearhead I was told when the natives made canoes 🛶 they would place a tree trunk over the fire and use the stone axe to hollow out the trunk i was also told it could be worth upwards of 18,000 😅 it’s small but it may have had started out much larger just the wear and tear over time caused it to reworked until it was too small lol
Great to see a vid about those ones, I discovered them in Cormac MacCarthy's "Blood Meridian" and they look like incredibly simple and efficient weapons.
Same. I remember a chapter where before attacking a native american village Glanton tells the gang not to waste powder and ball on anything that can't shoot back, instead using these clubs via horseback in a whipping like motion to crack heads as they ride through the village.
A few years ago they found a battlefield (Tollense) in northern Germany along a river that had a large number of participants. The numbers involved were larger than the experts thought were able to be mobilized at that time. It appears that it was a battle of locals fighting people from further east in Europe. One of the interesting things is there were two types of clubs. One looked like a 2/3 sized baseball bat and the other one looked like the war club in this video but made of all wood.
Would have been cool(but also horrifying) to know what the background was, the entire story, behind Tollense. Why and how it came to be, who all the people were, what their names were, what they looked like(now that one I know can sorta be recreated with modern AI technology, though it is not perfect by any means), what their various roles were, and why this battle/conflict was so important and how it affected people in the region even those who weren't directly involved long term, etc.
Sadly, we will only know very little based only on the archaeological finds in comparison to the entire truth. I mean, we have Ötzi, who we seem to have a surprising amount of knowledge of his life, but a lot of that is just theories(but with sound logic of course). It is things like that that makes me want us to have a time machine so we could go back there before the battle, during the battle and after the battle, and even a year to a decade after the battle, so we know who everyone was. That's kind of important to me. Knowing the people. It gives a whole lot of more meaning behind this tragic event.
Since we don't have access to a time machine, we can only speculate based on the current finds. That's the bummer with history that far back. You can only make reasonable but not concrete guesses and theories based on finds when you're digging up history before recorded history. If only people had known that written history would become so important much sooner. We would've known so many more things in the distant Stone Age if people had thought about leaving behind their biographies for future generations tens of thousands of years later.
According to Indians themselves(at the battle of the bighorn)they used it to smack the weapons of the soldiers, to disarm them and then in the same movement hit their heads(like a polo swing in reverse)on the back stroke. So it makes a circle.
From the galloping horse 🏇
Thanks for the video
I love how you are including Native American weapons. They need more recognition. Same with the Zulus.
Agreed !
Excellent video! Would love to see more in this vein! It's worth noting that many cultures that had the technology for stone-headed weapons still often opted for wooden ones. I'm in Australia, so I'm thinking of the many Aboriginal cultures mainly, but the same is true with the Maori in New Zealand and most of the Pacific Island cultures I'm aware of. So even when stone headed weapons were available, many people chose purely wooden ones for some reason. That's interesting, isn't it?
Aboriginals used their non returning hunting and war boomerangs as a club or near virtual wooden sword. Some of the native timbers in Australia are extremely hard and will kinda take a edge of sorts that might not cleave of limbs but certainly
draw blood
wood is generally more durable than stone
Those first hand accounts of tomahawk fighting were excellent, I hope you will find time to make more videos of those first hand battle accounts.
I know in the area I live "Canada east coast" Mi'kmaq, grand River warriors, mohawk and other tribes in later years used the guns stock war club they were status symbols in tribes. The wooden club ate the end was shaped like a musket stock. They also added a piece of flint and later metal spike where the flint would be on a musket. It is a very cool looking club and was apparently effective.
Great job. Something I think that might give more understanding on attacking or defending is look at Philippines Escrema stick fighting. Looking at the flex and how it's made, I think the war club is transfering the force of the strike, kind of like a snapping punch vs. thrusting punch. So, for a snapping punch is you strike and return the punch at the same speed so you maximize the impact and dont lose force and energy of the punch. Now, the thrusting punch is more of a follow-through when you make contact. So that might be the way it was designed to strike and then return back to a ready position. That's my thoughts from a martail artist perspective.
Shields..... a recurring topic 👍 Very interesting video. 👍👍
Some additional thoughts: If you can end a fight with one blow, achieving surprise becomes even more useful. If you're going to raid a group of enemies, an axe or strong club can keep a sentry from crying out, something that's much harder to ahieve with a nimbler weapon.
Psychology could also play a role. Going up against a stick is less horrifying. The stone club could make it more likely an opponent would back down without a fight. Especially if it looks imposing, giving the impression that the wielder prioritized fighting and the equipment to do it with.
Another thing to note: based on my past reading on this topic, in Eastern Woodlands cultures, wooden armor was also in use. I don’t recall whether it was used for helmets, but I definitely recall that breastplates were a thing. Paired with a shield and a stone headed mace, you can imagine how potent a combination that would be on the battlefield. Presumably you’d be quite well protected in such gear, in which you can see why you’d be keen to adopt the metal axes those new weird guys are trading…
Great to see this here. I would love to see some obsidian cutting edge weapons too.
I learned in the Kanien'kehá:ka community in which I teach, they would make profoundly strong stone weapons/tools by splitting young saplings, and splicing/binding the stone head into the still growing wood. Wait 20 years, and it's one single system.
In our language (Lakota), this weapon is called “inyanka’pemni” which means literally “stone that turns heads into water”….
From my understanding ... NE woodlands tribes such as my own also had full wooden shields even shields worn on our backs with armor. You can use your bow as your primary and pull your warclub when up close using the bow to block with while delivering a headshot.
I believe the stone headed clubs were attached to the wooden handle with wet rawhide that went around the head and spirally wrapped down the whole length of the handle . Wet rawhide shrinks quite tightly so it dried quite hard and was still a bit flexible.
As you mentioned There are others types of war clubs but makes this style unique is that the head was made out of stone where as almost all the other like the more iconic Cherokee war club where made out of carved hardwood
I live in Oklahoma (Indian Territory) although I have no Indian blood. I didn't know any of this. Thanks very much. I would love to hear more.
Hoka Hey! thanks for posting!
Very cool these stone war clubs.
Very cool! Can you also do a video on the Scandinavian stone axe-hammers from the so-called battleaxe culture?
Sounds kinda racist
This here is native space
White people can't be native
I'd like to see him do something with the Maori patu ,that was like a cross between a single handed club and a axe when they were made with greenstone.
I had a go at making a wooden patu in last few weeks it didn't turn out great but it's ok for me and my first attempt
So many people underestimate the power of bonk. Bonk has always and always will be incredibly effective.
I believe there was also another style where the whole handle was made of rawhide. The handle was a little shorter and made essentially from loops of rawhide then wrapped in rawhide making it relatively stiff but still very whippy. I was told it came from the Nez Perce or perhaps another tribe near them.
I’ve seen a lot of Native American antique weapons… a lot. Am not familiar with that and it plays into my specialty as a researcher. If you have any links or references, let me know. Thanks!
@@ObjectHistory the only info I have is it was supposedly called a kopluts spelling may be off. I have seen only one once, it was in a private collection that was displayed at the guys funeral. I may have pictures but I'm not positive
@@ObjectHistory I believe a tough translation was skull crusher. Of I recall it is Nez Perce, I believe the handle was shorter, roughly a foot to a foot and a half long, supposedly used on bears or something however that could totally be a myth
@@Carterironworks Thanks for both comments, that's great. As the self-appointed historian of the flexible impact weapons of the West (not nerdy at all), any lead is welcome.
Hatito howisiwapani brother I am from the Eastern Shawnee tribe of Oklahoma. We used ball headed war clubs made from root burls, the tight grain of that burl creating the ball would crush, we also used a gun stock war club shaped like a gun stock and with the angle in it we could deflect and swing your arm one way or we could hook the weapon in your hand with one arm and with our other arm get into thr center of your body with a knife or tomahawk, or hook the weapon your hand disarm you and spin it around and strike you with the thin edge. We also used a saber style war club they say was about the shape of your cicket bats. Niyaawe kamoochi laakwa kinoole no' ki
It is so much like a sling, but with a rigid connection rather than cord. If these were used by someone who was accustomed to using a sling, it may have acted as a sling which couldn't lose its stone, and was easier to start, redirect, and stop.
Again the sling use would have granted the user great muscle memory and spatial comprehension of what the business end was doing at all times.
I love your channel, keep it up and thank you!
My kids found the head of one of those in our backyard. We live in the Southern Ozarks of Missouri..they have also found numerous flint spear and arrowheads. All in our backyard.
I've also seen where a horse mounted warrior would swing the club by it's lanyard very fast and that would deliver a smashing blow if landed. The small diameter handle would allow them to swing it fast. There is an example in Last of the Mohicans where the club is used this way. Just imagine a warrior riding a horse at full speed and swinging the club round and round while letting out a war cry. Scary!
We absolutely have recorded history of native north american use of shields in combat. The one that comes immediately to mind is Champlain talking about the shields in use by the Algonquin.
Specific details are sparse but its not just extrapolation from medicine shields - we have accounts of their use.
I would love to see some more native American war clubs on the channel especially the gunstock war club I'm Making one out of either padauk wood or zebra wood. My mother's side of the family is mohawk so I think not would be a good addition to my melee weapons.
Anything about maces and clubs, from any time period, would be welcome.
Calling it a projectile launcher makes a lot of sense! I have often imagined it could be used where the swing is stopped short & the head would whip forward which could to a degree get around defences.
Similar to how many spring handed black jacks can be used.
You heal a lot of really good points! But it’s not just for striking the head. Knees, wrists or hands, rib cage and the like, would not be pleasurable by any means.
But I absolutely agree that probably some sort of shield was used in the opposing hand. Great video!
The wrist strap was also used as an extension of the mace for fast swings and impact
Greetings from Maryland USA. When Captain John Smith explored the upper Chesapeake Bay in the early 1600's, he traded with Massawomeck warriors whom he encountered for some of their weapons including shields. He also recorded that the Powhatan's thought his group had won them in battle. I wonder how they got that idea. I don't remember off the top of my head if he gave descriptions in his journal or not.
i´d love to see you wielding and speculating with the mexican macuahuitl and the brazilian borduna
You can still look at Masai warriors in East Africa. One of the weapons in their arsenal is a stick/club kalled "rungu" similar to the one you have from South Africa. They, the Masai warriors also have shields. Used with their short (longer than the Zulu ones) spears, or their swords (short ones) or a stick-club ...
Had a go at making my own patu in past few weeks it didn't turn out perfect but it came out ok for a first attempt
I'm not educated at all on maces, but the tassel in the middle reminds me of those you see on bowstrings. Perhaps (if it's not decorative, which is fairly likely) it serves the same purpose? to reduce flutter in the relatively thin and flexible shaft? If not, very interesting construction regardless.
I've never before seen the egg shaped head on other maces but I do really like it aesthetically.
That was a perfect Ciaran Hinds impression on the tumbnail. Howgh!
Very good👍
There is Italian comic about Zagor Te Nej from '70. Main hero had primary weapon like that, though he used revolver too.
Lets have a look at one of the shields you mentioned please.
Eastern Woodlands tribes did use shields. The Vaca and DeSoto expeditions make mention of them. They also survive in Chickasaw oral history.
This kinda reminds me of a metatron video where he demostrates with something as simple as a weight on the end of a lever , the head material in extremely forgiving. His brass mace did the same damage and held up durability wise as much as his bronze head mace despite brass being a much softer metal.
Very Good Video. Could you talk about the Native American Gunstock Club?
That would ring your bell no doubt about it.
He should do a vid on the ball head war club, gunstock club, or the Apache war club/ slap jack war club.....
My Grandfather had a whole box of these club heads that he plowed out of his fields over the years on his farm on the plains of Manitoba in central Canada. arrowheads as well including a large one made of quartz that must have been a lance head. I think my Aunt ended up with the collection.
I have read about war clubs that had handles made from horn strips laminated. Rino horn in particular. They must have been incredibly tough and flexible.
I recently made on just for fun. It's pretty easy to make one and it feels like a flyswatter but for humans.
The hardest work is grinding out the stone but wielding one alongside a carved wooden club you can tell the difference in weight transference and air resistance.
Have you considered their use from horseback? Particularly against opponents on foot. This is where they could be extremely effective and probably outclass the tomahawk. Their longer more springy shaft would would maximise the force particularly against fleeing or stationery enemies. You can almost imagine it used like a polo mallet with the enemy's head being the ball. You must remember that by the 19th century the Native Americans of the plains had become adept at fighting from horseback.
That's how they were used your right
The artist/adventurer George Catlin did several illustrations of Native American weaponry in the 1830’s and 40’s.
Nice thank you.
Hi Matt, you spoke about hide shields. Do you think you could perhaps do a video on just how effective hide shields were? Could they withstand a spear or a sword? How were they made strong enough to be useful?
yes hide can be made effective against swords and spears, and in fact hardened leather shields were used by many metal working cultures. as to how you make it strong, generally by boiling it.
Rawhide