Comanche Bow Maker Goes Viral
Comanche Nation Tribal Member Willie Pekah creates bows and arrows and has become an international name in the business with over 1 million views on YouTube.
The videos began with a project from Oklahoma University (OU) film students.
“I've always wanted to do that all these years. ‘When's the opportunity going to happen?’ And all of a sudden, a friend of mine and her friend, Phillis Narcomey and Annette Arkeketa, they approached me,” Pekah said. “They said, ‘We're doing a filming project at OU. We have a class. We have to film something, produce it, edit it, and turn it in as a project.’”
He is now with the Tulsa Library, which films him as he creates ideas.
Pekah began his journey at nine and wanted to continue the Comanche history.
“I learned a little bit on myself, you know, just what people told me. Then I started talking to my grandmother, Lily Picati, that where are the bow makers,” he said. “Even that time when I was nine years old, there was just a handful. Then, some of the old guys never made them anymore, but they knew how. So, they would tell me where to get the dogwood for my shafts, and how to work them and, how to treat them, and to get them ready to make arrows. And then story goes with that, how they shot and things like that.”
Pekah would ask different people for information, including how to get wood for bows and when and how to make the string.
“I wanted more information and it just wasn't out there. So, I did the best I could and developed what I'd learned from the elders to create what I do today,” he said. “So, a lot of things are easier. When I started out, I learned how to make the bowstring with sinew. I loved it. It was good. You would just get, you know, long fibers of sinew and braid it. But what happens when sinew gets wet or moisture? It stretches. So, your bow is useless. So, I developed using imitation sinew that you get from…leather stores.”
Pekah said when he began, there weren’t very many bow makers.
“That's why I tried to search them out and talk to ones that I could find,” he said. “But that's what caused my interest is just be able to carry it on and do it for myself. Even when I was making bows and arrows, my other friends, they wanted to play baseball and everything else. I did play baseball, but they said, ‘Where's Willie?’ ‘Oh, he's making bows, you know.’”
Pekah’s favorite bow is a traditional Comanche bow made out of bodark, with one still shooting 20 years later.
“It's the best wood. I've talked to other bow makers that were non-Indian, and they preferred bodark because bodark is a wood that it's springy when you string it up,” he said.
Pekah began the videos so people could continue learning.
“As I talk to people, they like my videos because I'm an old educator. And they said, ‘You know, I teach them how to make something.’ I go through every little process—how you work with the wood, how you take the bark off, how you look for the wood—I create everything. So, if somebody wanted to make it later, they have a guide,” he said.
Pekah was hired by different tribes to teach.
“On a Saturday morning, put on a class, do it for six or seven weeks. So, I would do that,” he said. “Teach them how to get a piece of wood and shape a bow, put a string on it, teach them how to make the arrows and everything. Then, at the end, we go shoot them. ‘We can shoot these?’ ‘Well, we made them to shoot.’ But they made theirs out of hickory. Hickory is a good wood to learn from because it's soft. It is springy, but it gets back that set.”
Pekah has been approached by movie makers of Prey and has his own work in the film The Sun.
