From: firstinitiallastname@texas.net   
      
   Von Fourche wrote:   
   >     Did Indians really throw tomahawks as weapons as seen in some films?  If   
   > so, how effective was it as a weapon?   
   >   
   >     What about tomahawks and weapons in general?  Not throwing, just   
   > hacking.  Were they commonly used by Indians?   
      
   Well, yes and no. A stone hatchet or tomahawk requires considerable time   
   and effort to make, doesn't throw very well with any hope of doing much   
   damage and is not to be thrown away lightly. Most references to Indians   
   throwning tomahawks recounts them doing it more as a game or just to be   
   destructive, rather than in battle. As a hand-to-hand weapon, a tomahawk   
   often got the better of a bayonet, the tomahawk allowing the operator to   
   be more mobile and faster and to keep one hand free for defensive parries.   
      
   With metal hatchets and hawks, Anglos regularly made a game of throwing   
   at targets, and Indians similarly armed would have found the performance   
   to be far better than a stone head. But such things are primarily   
   hand-held weapons. With two equally armed men, say with knife and   
   tomahawk, the first to throw away either one of them, either being   
   rather easily dodged, would have been at a serious disadvantage.   
      
   Not to say that it couldn't ever happen. If given insufficient time to   
   reach an unaware enemy, a throw might divert or even seriously injure.   
      
   Only a cooperative or remarkably slow to reacte enemy, as provided by   
   the movie script, would fail to dodge any thrown weapon. As you will   
   have noted in oaters, tomahawks invariably found their targets, while   
   empty thrown handguns were easily avoided. (Even by Superman, who   
   apparently had a patholgical fear of thrown pistols, always ducking,   
   even after taking the bullets from the same gun in the chest without   
   effect.)   
   --   
                          Gerald Clough   
       "Nothing has any value, unless you know you can give it up."   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)