I havent heard of any staff slings being used in mesoamerica so I would be skeptical about that.

Clay pellets were shot from blowguns to bring down birds for their plumage. You dont mess up the feathers with blood that way. Pellets against a human would be useless so poison darts are the choice here. There are plenty of examples of poisoned blowgun darts from many Amazonian tribes.

http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Curare/

There is a hint at a weapon that might have been something like a staff sling in the sources about the Norse in North America (!). In the year 1010, Thorfinn Karlsefni's group of about 160 persons was attacked by Indians after what seems to be a classical intercultural misunderstanding, and the natives used a strange weapon:

There are conflicting stories but one account states that a bull belonging to Karlsefni came storming out of the wood, so frightening the natives that they ran to their skin-boats and rowed away. They returned three days later, in force. The natives used catapults [???], hoisting "a large sphere on a pole; it was dark blue in color" and about the size of a sheep's belly, which flew over the heads of the men and made an ugly din. ([i]quoted from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_colonization_of_the_Americas)[/i]

The source indicated for the account is Magnus Magnusson's Vinland Sagas. I don't know which is the original source (the Lándnámábok?), but I had heard about the event in another context many years ago.

I have no idea how to really imagine the weapon and the projectile. A staff sling is the closest relative I know. The "catapult" is an invention by the Wikipedia author. I'm sure the Indians did not approach the Vikings with siege engines on wheels.

That does seem nearly identical to a staff sling in implementation, though you could argue the differences are large enough to make it a different weapon that simply uses the same mechanics. I guess it all depends on your point of view. I remember reading a thread earlier about what i believe was called "Apple sticking" which involved taking a pointy somewhat flexible branch, poking it into an apple, and using it similar to a staff sling to launch the apple a great distance, just as the weapon above would have worked with their poles and ammunition.

Found thread, enjoy: http://slinging.org/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1130276238/7#7

Also, the pellets out of a blowgun sounds interesting, i am attempting to find what size pipe i would need to make a blowgun possible of using paintballs as ammunition, being as they are light, easily accessible, and require no extra preparation to be shot, providing they're the right size to make a good seal with the pipe.

slingbadger wrote on Jun 17^th, 2009 at 7:00am:


this is what we called a green apple launcher when i was a kid havent used 1 for a long time but u take a shrap stick say 3ft and push it half way in to the apple one that is not ripe they work best [green apple] use like a sling staff and the apple flys off and goes 200ft or so if u put a stone or wood ball were the apple goes it would make a very effective weapon

Quote:

You mean the 'misunderstanding' that goes: 'we're taking all ths stuff, what do you mean it's yours ?'

Lot of those went on (and still do)