Note 2 — Chapter IV · Industrial Life

The Negrito, as has been said, is remarkably ingenious in the construction of arrows. Those with which he hunts the deer are provided with cruelly barbed, detachable iron point. (Figs. 8, 9, Pl. XLII.) When the animal is struck the point leaves the shaft, unwinding a long woven coil with which the two are fastened together. The barbs prevent the point from tearing out of the flesh and the dangling shaft catches on the underbrush and serves to retard the animal’s flight. In spite of this, however, the stricken deer sometimes gets away, probably to die a lingering death with the terrible iron point deeply embedded in its flesh. A similar arrow is mentioned by De Quatrefages as having been found by Alan among the Mincopies of the Andamans.2