Bolas

Charroi Native American ( Rio de la Plata ) with Bolas. Fig. Hendrick Ottsen, 1603

Europeans first saw Bolas among the Brazilian Indians. It was an original development of the idea of ​​a throwing stone, widely distributed around the planet about 20 thousand years ago, but has not been preserved anywhere until now. The Indians used bolas to hunt for guanaco . Similar weapons were also used by the Chukchi ^[1] and the Koryak of North-Eastern Siberia (for bird hunting), as well as the North American Inuit (Eskimos) ^{[2] [3]} .

Probably, soon after people even came up with the idea of ​​combining several parts into one gun, the hunters guessed to combine the stone and the belt so as not to lose a convenient throwing stone and be able to draw it back after the throw. Then a few more were added to the first stone - now the bolas not only hit the animal with a blow, but also entangled its legs. So it was possible to dump even a horse .

Bolas consisted of three or four small (0.15-0.2 kg) stones, sheathed in leather and interconnected with leather belts about a meter long. The bundle could be consistent, and in this case, the total length of the device reached 400 cm, or the belts of all weights were attached to one node.

Some tribes of South American Indians (Patagonians, Abipons , Pampa Indians) passed on from history to arrows from bolas , that is, to throwing balls of 2-3 round stones, the size of an orange, covered with leather and connected by a belt length of 1-1.5 meter. Waving a belt, the Indians throw these balls at a beast or a person at a distance of up to 100 steps, and fall very accurately, with the balls twisting around the body and knocking down, causing a blow. Another, smaller weapon - the so-called bola perdita - has copper or lead balls, sometimes ovoid or with pointed ends, and rushes to a distance of 150 steps.

- Throwing guns // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

Bolas could only be used in open space. But a bunch of stones, having, in principle, a device close to a brush or extinguish , could be used in close combat. As such, bolas were used by the inhabitants of the Solomon Islands - with special movements of the brush, the weapon spun along a complex path around the body (“eight”), and then a sudden attack was made in the direction of the enemy’s head ^[4] . The inhabitants of New Zealand, which did not have large land animals in their fauna by the time the Europeans appeared there, still used bows and spears, and just used a large stone on a rope ( mayor ), which they owned very quickly, as military weapons. Perhaps the mayor was used against the rapidly extinct moas , which seem strong enough to get rid of smaller hunting guns.

An illustration of the use of bolas can be seen in the adventure film " Novel with a Stone " - a teenager, throwing a bolas, stuns and binds the sister of the main character, and then abducts her.

Bolas has been used several times in the series Xena - The Warrior Queen .

In the spaghetti western "Mercenary" shows the use of two bolas for knocking a running person from his legs by cutting.

In the film "Nemesis 2" the main character is immobilized by a representative of local natives.

In addition, in the movie Police Academy 6: The City Under Siege, with the help of Bolas, Sergeant Tackleberry caught a member of Wilson’s gang.

Also, a weapon similar in principle to action is very popular with the Vikings of the How to Train Your Dragon universe, where it is used as one of the main weapons for catching a dragon - along with a net - and is thrown with both hands and throwing machines - a ballist.

In the indie game Never Alone, the use of bolas is part of the gameplay for the heroine of the game, a girl Nuna from the Inupiat tribe ^[5] . Also in the game there are videos telling about the history of the use of bolas by these people.

In the computer game Serious Sam Bolas, skeletons from Clear are armed - one of the most common opponents.

• The Bolas spider ( lat. Mastophora cornigera ) is named after the Bolas weapons, as it catches its prey - moths - on a sticky ball from a web, lowering it on a long thread and waving it in the air ^[6] .

• Volkovsky N. L. Children's military encyclopedia. - 1st ed. - Olma-Press , Polygon, 2001. - T. 1. - S. 7. - 656 p. - 20,000 copies. - ISBN 5-89173-104-5 , ISBN 5-224-02008-5 .