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pellet. An arrow-bow could be shot on foot or on horseback. Each usage required its own methods and those methods changed over the centuries.
Archery in China in the pre-Shang period
At the risk of stating the obvious, archery was used in hunting and warfare in pre-Shang times. In mentioning this point, I should add that there is adequate archaeological evidence to support such a view, but little to illuminate any other aspect of archery culture at those times. Pre-Shang animal and human remains have been found with arrow wounds, and cliff paintings considered to date from pre-Shang times show scenes of hunting activities with a bow and arrow.
Shamanism as a component of the archery tradition?
Legend (Zuo Zhuan, Shan Hai Jing, Huai Nan Zi among others. Selby Chapter 2.) sets the Xia period as the background for two stories concerning the archer Yi'. In one tale, he shoots down ten suns in the sky, and in the other, he usurps the throne of Xia, but devotes all his time to the hunt and neglects affairs of state. He is ultimately assassinated. These two tales were widely confused (principally by Qu Yuan in his Chu Ci cycle of poems.)
The tale of an archer shooting the sun is both long-lived and widespread. The tale is folk-tale recorded from Guangxi to Mongolia (Erekhe Mergen). A Han commentator regarded 'Yi' as being the name of a class of archery instructors rather than an individual. The legend links archery with praying for rain in times of drought. Were the "Yi' class in fact a class of archery shamans who controlled magical properties of the bow and arrow?
Archery in the Shang Oracle bones.
The oracle bones are an important, contemporary written record of life in Shang China. Over 60,000 specimens in collections around the world allow us to see how the bow was used in hunting, what sort of quarry were hunted with it, what other methods were favoured, and what season was the hunting season.
The shooting of enemy with bows is also recorded. One of these