Spear bow

A Lakota bow lance with an iron point. The string features white ratskin and eagle downs, the bow arms eagle feathers, and the ends owl feathers.

A spear bow, or bow lance, is a type of longbow equipped with a speartip or bayonet at the end of the upper bow arm, allowing the user to utilize it as a spear wheen needed, such as a backup weapon. When strung, the bow acts like a curved spear, which akin to a curved sword can work around a shield other other defense. When unstrung, the bow straigthens out and works more like a normal spear.

Spear bows exist all over the world throughout history.

Japan

In Japan, two principles of spear bow have existed. One principle was to fit a dedicated socketed bayonet, called hazuyari (Japanese: 弭槍, はずやり, lit. 'end pike'), to the end of the bow. Another was to tie an uchine throwing dart (Japanese: 打根, うちね, lit. 'throwing root') to the end of a bow in some improvised manner.

North America

In North America, long spear bows, called bow lances, were used by the Lakota people.

Scandinavia

In 1859, Danish archeologist Conrad Engelhardt excavated two Migration Period spear bows in Nydam Mose, Denmark, dating to 250–400 AD; one with an iron tip and the other with an antler tip. Later on, out of forty bows found in Nydam, eight were spear bows.

A Sámi spear bow from later on has also been found by German archeologist Harm Paulsen.