Bola
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The bola ( Spanish ball ) is a throwing weapon of the Eskimos , Siberian Chukchi and South American hunters and is also used by cattle herders in this region to catch runaway cattle.
Bola stones have been found since the early Middle Pleistocene (700,000 to 120,000 years ago). In the Middle East, in Tell Hassuna in Mesopotamia, slingshot balls made of burnt clay were found from the Neolithic.
The bola consists of three lines with a length of 0.4 to 1.5 m each, which are knotted together at one end to form a three-armed star. At the outer end of each line there is a weight (stone, leather bag with stones or lead shot).
use
One end of the bola is held in the hand and the other two ends are twirled over the head and thrown into the legs of the animal to be caught, causing the animal to trip and fall. The rotating bola wraps itself around the animal's legs. The precise throw requires practice, as the animal to be caught usually moves quickly.
Bolas were and are also used for catching birds. These weapons are i. d. Usually built lighter and smaller than Bolas for other purposes.
A variant for use as a weapon of war is the Bola Perdida , which has only one ball or only one weight. It's basically a slingshot with the slingshot mechanism attached to the projectile .
Related topics
- War weapon chain ball on ships and cannons.
- The monkey fist is also known as the “ball on a string” .
- Catch stones of the Sahara
- Suruchin is a Japanese striking and throwing weapon with two weights on a string.
- Manriki Gusari is the same throwing weapon with two weights on a chain.
- Click-clack balls , a game device with two connected balls from the 1970s.
- Ladder golf , a game known in the United States as ladder toss (also known as ladder golf ), consists of two golf balls on a short string.
literature
- Emil Hoffmann: Lexicon of the Stone Age . Munich: Beck 1999, ISBN 3-406-42125-3 , p. 59.
