Boarding axe or tomahawk?

I got four words to sum it up....wedge on a stick...got some nice history lessons here but its like were trying to find out who invented the wheel eh ?...anyone agree with that statement?
 
Pipeman said:
Ya, the ethnographers keep telling us we're Chinese :D Most west coast first nations people I know reject that theory. I'm 1/2 Cree which is one of the Anishnabec tribes in the algonkian linguistic group. According to "scientists"
our DNA is europein:(:D
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Yeah, there were likely more movements of people into the Americas then we have yet discovered. At a minimum there were migrations across the land bridge, along the Pacific coast and from across the north Atlantic. There may also have been a south Pacific migration and possibly even a south Atlantic migration. One thing for sure, Columbus was a late arrival to the party.
 
pullrich said:
Re: Pacific NW First People and weapons, actually I've always been struck by the limited presence of much warlike gear out here, according to what records I know of. I'm not saying they didnt go to war, just that relative to the people on the plains, doesnt seem to have been as much emphasis. By necessity, I'm sure, plains people had a heck of a lot of pressure as the white westward expansion picked up steam.
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War was infrequent until horses spread up into the northwest after escaping from the Spanish southwest. It just wasn't practical to waste resources on war until horses made travel easier.
 
church&son said:
tomahawk (n.)

1.weapon consisting of a fighting ax; used by North American Indians

We might have coined the word, Toma is a Polynesian prefix for burial, The Hawk is the messenger, maybe the word meant to seen you to your burial ground. And also the term "tomahawk" is a derivation of the Algonquian Indian words "tamahak" or "tamahakan". The earliest definitions of these words (early 1600's) applied to stone-headed implements used as tools and weapons. The Algonquians MAY have been the first to trade with the French.
The metal heads that we call Native American Tomahawks were originally based on a Royal Navy boarding axe and used as a trade-item with Native Americans for food and other provisions and as Robin said I think the "Pipe 'Hawks" were made as a novelty for trade. But who knows who was the first to stick metal threw a limb, maybe the Celts during the Bronze age. Probably looked something like this...........Randy

celttomahawk.jpg
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See a lot of these in Africa .
I had one when I was a little younger in Northern Rhodesia now Zambia but I saw them used down the southern end as well.
Richard
 
i dont know where i heard this but, for some reason I heard about people hanging axe heads on grownig tree branches, and later coming back to cut it off ( after it grew in )......jog any memories people ? thats all I remember
 
The wikings small fighting axe is wery similar to the indian hawk. The vikings axe wase not hevy.
Arceologs have found them and many of them resembe the hawk.
Long before collombus went over the viking vent there. The saga thells abouth it. The indians wase wery hostile, to the new settlers. The vikings gave gifts of axes to them and traiding some. So here the indian not able to geth iron may have tryed to copy the axe after the vikings were wiped oute. The stone axes we se resemble this.
When they had settlment innland they filled the boat with stones so it sank, for hiding it for the enemy. And when they need it again they remove th stone and could youse the ship.
One story tells abouth one tribe of vikings wase cutt off so they could not go back by ships (ship destroyed or somthing)
So they had to go innland and adopt the indian way of life to survive.

If these vikings were in greate number ore not, it is intresting and if they brought the smal viking axe "hawk"?
 
This is the earliest English boarding axe I could find a picture of. It's from the early 1800's, but you can certainly see a tomahawk there.

etched-axe-wwwashokaartscom---naval-or-firemans-axe-fine-antique-oriental-arms-and-armour-swords-and-weapons-1-2568.jpg
 
HK47 said:
The wikings small fighting axe is wery similar to the indian hawk. The vikings axe wase not hevy.
Arceologs have found them and many of them resembe the hawk.
Long before collombus went over the viking vent there. The saga thells abouth it. The indians wase wery hostile, to the new settlers. The vikings gave gifts of axes to them and traiding some. So here the indian not able to geth iron may have tryed to copy the axe after the vikings were wiped oute. The stone axes we se resemble this.
When they had settlment innland they filled the boat with stones so it sank, for hiding it for the enemy. And when they need it again they remove th stone and could youse the ship.
One story tells abouth one tribe of vikings wase cutt off so they could not go back by ships (ship destroyed or somthing)
So they had to go innland and adopt the indian way of life to survive.

If these vikings were in greate number ore not, it is intresting and if they brought the smal viking axe "hawk"?
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Also look for images of the Frankish fighting axe called the "francisca". Very similar to American/English tomahawks and viking axes. It goes back to Roman/medieval times. Very old design, but a very good one.
 
You can go all the way back to ancient mesopotamia and see their light, quick fighting axes which very much resembled tomahawks. Some even elaborate ons with spikes too.
 
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