Last European full-time bow hunters? The answer is only one: Look for one of the Polish historical ethnic group, called "Kurpie".

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

They were the best archers (they weren't popular, but believe me - they were better than English medieval archers...) in the history of Europe.

Mangrove wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2010 at 3:21pm:



I don't know what is the situation of bow in "Kurpie" in modern times, but in Poland, it is ILLEGAL to hunt with bow, so I think, that they are not using bows in modern times to hunt.
Interesting example of Kurpie bow hunters is, when King Charles X Gustav of Sweden, travelled by Kurpie forests in the time of Polish-Swedish War, called "Potop" ("Deluge"), Kurpie archers almost killed him, by their bows (bows, which were generally used for hunting...).


I am sure, that Kurpie, used bows as a weapon to kill people (enenemies) up to the Napoleonic Era, but for hunting, up to the end of XIXcentury/start of XXth century - Isolated cases of using bow for hunting happened up to the time of World War II.

Mangrove wrote on Feb 23^rd, 2010 at 4:04pm:


I've got a lot of books/articles/fragments of literature, but only in Polish...

I have several accounts that Mansi people, rather close relatives of Finns, used bow similar to other Finno-Ugric people at least until the first years of the twentieth century. The Finno-Ugrian Society has published Artturi Kannisto's notes from his 1901-1906 trip to Mansi people in book "Artturi Kanniston kansatieteellisiä muistiinpanoja 1901-1906". It contains a good description of their arrows but only few lines of the bows but it's clear that the design has remained the same for many thousands of years due of the few suitable tree species living in the Northern Europe.