Poisons for hunting

[Bear Stone]

Hi fellas,
My friends and I have got ourselves into a debate about English poisons that were used on arrow heads when hunting.
Without going into too much detail; here is what we have. Two thirds of us believe that there are no plant poisons in the UK that can knock out an animal within a few seconds of the arrow having made contact. The remaining third believe that the prey had to be tracked (this is assuming a poor shot from the hunter) until the poison took hold.

Is there anyone here that can clear this up for us, and perhaps recommend a book so that the evidence can be seen in black and white?
Thanks,

Bear

 

[Stuart]

I belive i am right in saying that in every part of the world where poisons are used on arrow tips, the natural poison is not strong enough to immediatly dispach the animal and they invariably have to be tracked a some distance (even if the poison is very potant the animal will bolt some distance before being overcome)

The biggest problem with poisons is finding a poison which will quickly overcome an animal but still leave the animal edible for humans without risk of poisoning

plant poisons are used all over the world for fishing in this country lime was used which kills the fish but does leaves them fine to eat

I do of course have to point out that poisoning animals is totally illigal and to some extent immoral in this country but as this is question is in a historical contexed I see no problem

see this link for how the namib bushmen do it

www.museums.org.za/bio/insects/beetles/chrysomelidae/arrows.htm

 

[bushwacker bob]

traditional method i was taught when hunting game with a bow is to use approriate arrow for the game hunted. deer were shot with a broard arrow head which has sharp leading edges,designed to cut blood vessles on entry.on hitting the target, a well placed arrow could cause instant or near instant death.if the deer ran off then the hunter would sit down for 20 minutes or so before begining to track it.massive blood loss would stop a well hit animal within a few hundred yards.If it was only wounded then an immediate persuit would make the animal panic and run further fuelled on adrenilin.Arrows were available with flat heads for smaller game such as rabbits and even a strange type af arrow was available for shooting birds on the wing.i think it was called a floo floo or similar(someone here will know)I never heard of any poisons used tho'. The sitting down for 20 mins is important as the animal will move slower when not being chased and therefor leave an easier trail to track

 

[Powderburn]

Bob, here's a pic of a flu-flu, along with two normally fletched arrows for comparison. Not very good, but it was the first site I found that had a picture of a flu-flu. :-?

Regular fletching

Flu-Flu

Here are typical arrowheads.

Broadhead for larger critters

A blunt tip and a Judo point for birds and small game.

 

[Bear Stone]

Thanks fellas,
I have done a modest research and have found some evidence that supports the use of plant poisons on arrow heads. Some Roman arrow heads had deep grooves believed to be for that very thing. However, I can find no reference as to the potency of what was used powerful or otherwise.

Bear

 

[Stew]

I thought this point was for field archery not hunting. Aren't the spring arms meant to catch the ground and make the arrow stand upright, so the archer doesn't lose it?

Prepares for => :f:

 

[george]

Slightly off topic but maybe interesting all the same. In the nineties I spent some time in the mountains of Irian Jaya (west papua) - an incredible place where they still used stone tools and until recently fought ritual battles with bows, arrows and spears.

I brought back a bunch of bows and arrows and one of the interesting things about them is that they don't use poisoned arrows against people. What they did was wrap the point in a very brittle orchid fibre. This fibre breaks up in the wound and ensures that it will fester and become infected. The slightest wound therefore could result in a very slow and unpleasant death for whoever was on the recieving end!

Other places in Indonesia however did use various kinds of poisons for everything from fishing (crushed Barringtonia seedpods) to hunting large game.

I brought back some arrow poison from Central Sulawesi once and had a real problem convincing the Customs guy not to sniff the powder! I hate to think what would have happened if he had got a good noseful of it!

George

 

[Powderburn]

Stew, the arms on the Judo point are meant to keep the arrow from penetrating the game. In hunting small game and birds, you usually just want to "brain" the critter. Old timers used to make blunts by slipping an empty brass cartridge over their arrows to take squirrels, rabbits and birds.

 

[familne]

Hi fellas,
My friends and I have got ourselves into a debate about English poisons that were used on arrow heads when hunting.
Without going into too much detail; here is what we have. Two thirds of us believe that there are no plant poisons in the UK that can knock out an animal within a few seconds of the arrow having made contact. The remaining third believe that the prey had to be tracked (this is assuming a poor shot from the hunter) until the poison took hold.

Is there anyone here that can clear this up for us, and perhaps recommend a book so that the evidence can be seen in black and white?
Thanks,

Bear

I believe Monkshood or Wolf's Bane was used in Anglo-Saxon times to tip arrows as it was thought to kill wolves (hence Wolf's Bane). This is one of our most poisinous plants and was even used to execute criminals!!

 

[Bear Stone]

Do you think it would have been a quick kill? (quick being that game would not be able to run away after a poor shot) - maybe the plant was boiled down to concentrate the poison before applying it to arrow tips.
My friends and I are still divided on this point - no punn intended.

Bear

 

[familne]

Do you think it would have been a quick kill? (quick being that game would not be able to run away after a poor shot) - maybe the plant was boiled down to concentrate the poison before applying it to arrow tips.
My friends and I are still divided on this point - no punn intended.

Bear

I'm quoting from 'A Modern Herbal' here - it says that one-fiftieth grain of the poison will kill a sparrow in a few seconds and one-tenth will kill a rabbit in five minutes. I'm not exactly sure how much a grain is but probably quite a small amount. So it's pretty instant for smaller animals but not so quick the larger you go. But it would obviously slow an animal down significantly.

Fraser

 

[Roving Rich]

But can you eat the animal afterwards?
Rich

 

[Ed]

I'm not exactly sure how much a grain is

Its one of our old measures thats is rarely used today.

1lb = 16 ounces = 256 drams = 7000 grains


Ed

 

[familne]

But can you eat the animal afterwards?
Rich

No - I don't think so. I think is was used more for vermin control (vermin as they saw it then e.g. wolves)!

Fraser

 

[the naughty boy]

i may be wrong, but isnt it illegal to hunt with a bow in the uk? although i must confess i did use to skewer a few bunnies when i was a lad with a cross bow and dowell rods.plastic fletches were used.

 

[Stuart]

Yes it is illiegal to hunt with any sort of bow in the UK, the original question was asked in a historical contexted

 

[bushbasher]

Some tribes in the Amazon used concentrated Nicotine on their blowpipe darts. It has been said that the Nicotine in one Cigarette would be fatal if injected, not to mention all that fatty stuff from the advert. I don't know what the Game would taste like afterwards though. Probably like kissing Dot Cotton. Shudder!!!!! :twisted:

 

[Great Pebble]

It doesn't help much but I remember a particular advertisment that was carried in certain magazines in the 1980's for "blowpipes". The ad indicated that a recipe for a strong, easily available plant poison was included. Evidently it was, as the press really went to town over it indicating that if properly prepared the "poison" in question would kill a man.

Nick in Belfast

 

[Realgar]

Just found this thread. Some of the native poisons of the amazon will bring things down instantly - Curare for one, and the meat is safe to eat providing the area around the dart wound is removed. Curare also comes in less potent forms, the weakest of which is used for live capture, the strength is rated as to the number of trees the animal can jump to after being hit.

As for native poisons - the only one I can think of that's rapid enough would be foxglove, I can't imagine anything poisoned by that being safe to eat. Atropa doesn't work on all rabbits and those that are immune can wander around with quite toxic flesh after eating the stuff. Wolfsbane ( and indeed wolvesbane ) were strictly for just killing things, they ought to be fast acting through a dart. You could probably lace a dart with enough nicotine to kill game but leave the alkaloid diluted enough in the carcass to be safe to eat - but I'm not trying it, nicotine would certainly be fast enough.

There's a couple of poisons from grubs living on the shrubs of the commiphora genus that the San use for arrows - they can take days to bring down game which means a lot of walking.

If you do want to tip a dart, don't - poison is always put behind the head so an accidental jab doesn't kill anyone. Interestingly some tribes with no other concept of personal posessions will not handle each others arrows - you just don't know how much and where someone else has put the poison.

Potential non native arrow poisons you might get over here are things such as virola bark and anandenathera seeds from ethnobotany/legal high places -
they're also used as hallucinogens. These are safe in ingestion as the alkaloids are rapidly broken down ( just don't shove an arrow up your nose.) in the gut.

Frogs are a possibility but the poison frogs loose potency ( even the golden frog ) in captivity as there's something they eat in their wild diet that allows them to synthesise or accumulate the poison. I have access to tetrodoxin but I've never been tempted to try it out on darts - too much risk of self poisoning or loosing a dart.


Realgar