From http://www.ncsaindia.org/satpuda/yawalAug2004.doc


Quote:

I was on a 10-day visit to Maharashtra’s Yawal Sanctuary in May 2004. This wild forest in the Jalgaon district is a jewel in the crown of northern Maharashtra’s Khandesh region. ... When challenged by the sanctuary staff, the encroachers first resorted to bribery, and when this failed, violence, injuring several staff members. The Pawaryas are skilled with the gophan, a stone throwing sling with a range of 200 m., with which they can cause grievous injuries.      Assistant Conservator of Forests (ACF) Ajay Pillariseth, winner of the prestigious Kailash Sankhala fellowship, has recently been posted here and has started training Yawal’s staff to record bird populations and nests and track tiger and leopard movements. And ACF B.D. Wagh is training the local Barela villagers to use the gophan and bow and arrow, to protect themselves and their forest from Pawarya encroachers from M.P.

200 metres!  :o

http://gymkhana.iitb.ac.in/~gra/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=grawinter2008_camp


Quote:

The venue of this year’s GRA winter camp was Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh. Jhabua is the westernmost district of MP, bordering Gujarat and Rajasthan. It is a predominantly tribal district with Bhil, Bhilala and Patalia tribes constituting more than 87% of the population. ... After dinner, we enthusiastically explored some of the common Bhil weapons used for hunting in the earlier times- sword, bow & arrows and gophan. Gophan is a unique Bhil weapon and looks similar to a catapult that is swung several times around before launching the projectile (usually stone).

Unique, you say?  ;D

http://www.narmada.org/samachar/29.may.2001.html


Quote:

C. RAMMANOHAR REDDY details the sequence of events at Mehndikheda, Madhya Pradesh, where four persons were killed after a move to recover timber went out of control. ... On April 2 the Government team of a few hundred was met by equally numerous adivasis protestors at Mehndikheda. The district administration says the adivasis were armed. Some of them perhaps were - with gophans (stone slings) and tir kamti (bows and arrows). But in the event it was the local people who died in the face-off. Three adivasis and a non-tribal living in the area were killed by police bullets.

I wonder which language "gophan" is in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhya_Pradesh

The predominant language is Hindi, but there are local dialects. However, I would expect a Hindi word to be used in general reportage.

Here is another one picked up by Google. Its about an Indian movie 'Lagaan':

http://www.screenindia.com/old/20011221/rmara.html


Quote:

Ashutosh said that his frequent visits to Kolhapur and adjacent beautiful scenery and rustic atmosphere inspired him to create similar rustic scenes and atmosphere in Lagaan. A farmer protecting his crops by throwing stones through gophan is a particular scene found in rural Maharashtra. This scene gave Lagaan, a gophan player-cum-good bowler. The team of the rustic eleven in Lagaan is thus chosen from various traits and characters which can be seen in rural Indian panorama.

So it's an Indo-europaean word for sling ? Just curious

interesting.
Looks like they were mainly used for scaring birds from crops.

So is there any culture that hasn't - at some point - had a history of sling usage ?

Curious Aardvark wrote on Apr 23^rd, 2009 at 12:46pm:

So is there any culture that hasn't - at some point - had a history of sling usage ?

The one with the didgeridoo. Apparently they are incompatible except on this forum. :)

The American Museum of Natural History has a sling from India in their collection.
Here's a link to the collection search page of the museum.

http://anthro.amnh.org/anthro_coll.shtml

Just click the picture of Asia, and search for "sling." The Indian sling is on the thrid page of results, bottom-left.

-Timothy Potter