Here is an Alutiiq bow from around Kodiak Island or Prince William Sound,  on the coast they made short bows with few materials like sinew and maybe caribou antlers and bits of driftwood.  However in the inland,  we Yup'ik eskimos learned from the Athabaskan indians of how to make birch wood bows,  much longer than coastal bows,  in fact we call Inuit on the coast and up north "real" eskimos,  because they hunt sea mammals more than us inland eskimos do,  we're more like the Athabaskans in some ways,  we learned how to hunt what they hunt,  but we weren't very friendly,  we fought with them a lot,  still today there are some villages with the Athabaskans on one side of the river,  and Yup'iks on the other,  we don't talk to each other much nor inter-marry.  They don't go down-river we rarely go up-river,  in the past we used to raid and fight them,  most of the time we'd win,  in my hometown there are a lot of people who look indian,  they are probably from the women we used to take from their villages long ago,  though we don't kill each other anymore,  we're not the closest of friends.  Although we share many things,  many of the people throughout Alaska are mostly Russian Orthodox,  or any other Orthodox christians.

http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=12
http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=412 yupik bow
http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=69 another yupik bow
http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=59 inupiaq bow
http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=719 i like this one
http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=707

Those are really nice. I love the Eskimo cable backed bows, they are a really ingenious solution.

this is a great method, especially if you don't have access to very good bow wood. here's link to an excellent tutorial on how to make them. i've done it before using plain hemp twine and willow (possibly the worst bow wood imaginable) and managed to make a very servicable weapon.

http://www.primitiveways.com/cordage_backed_bow.html

Ivory,  bone,  stone is the main points,  very little knappable sources are rare around these parts soo theyre quite small in most cases,  it would be contrary in other parts where there are better sources
ahh I found another cool bow,  looks like a canadian inuit bow or something rather http://www.cowanauctions.com/itemImages/aa0300.jpg

Jabames wrote on Jan 10^th, 2011 at 7:11pm:


It's interesting seeing similarities in bows from cultures that are completely different from each other. That 5th link shows a bow that looks surprisingly like a Hun style bow if I remember correctly. There's some massive siyahs on that thing.

My dad made my brother and me bows for christmas. he used osage orange, which works well, seeing as the osage indians used it for their bows. On my third shot, I was able to shoot a modern carbon fiber arrow 250 feet, and it was only at 2/3 draw. It has a total draw weight of 60 pounds, so I struggle to hold it for any period of time.  Sadly, my friend pulled it back too far on new years eve (he was testing the draw), and it snapped. My dad and I are building a new one.  Maybe I can post a pic.

yupp