Bowyer indicate that only a minority of men in these cultures ever made bows. In the United States, many bowyers were inspired by Ishi, the last member of the Yahi, who lived most of his life outside modern culture. Ishi first contacted US citizens in 1911. His friend Saxton Pope learned some of his skills and spread them to bowyers including Howard Hill, Ben Pearson and Fred Bear. Bowyer A bowyer is someone who makes bows. Bows are used for hunting and for archery. The development of gunpowder and muskets slowly led to the replacement of bows as weapons of war
History of archery his Unlawful Games Act 1541. The advent of firearms eventually rendered bows obsolete in warfare. Despite the high social status, ongoing utility, and widespread pleasure of archery, almost every culture that gained access to even early firearms used them widely, to the relative neglect of archery. In Ireland, Geoffrey Keating (c. 1569 - c. 1644) mentions archery as having been practiced "down to a recent period within our own memory." Early firearms were inferior in rate of fire (a Tudor English author expects eight shots from the English longbow in the time needed for a "ready shooter" to give five