No harpoons? Unique ranged hunting weapons in finnish culture?

[More_tribal_interaction]

1) Can we have a harpoon for stabbing seals and reeling them in? Would make hunting more exciting. Seel hunting is such an integral part of the lifestyle of many coastal tribes/cultures.

2) There are unique ranged weapons specific to particular cultures like the atlatl, boomerang, and there's this non-lethal weapon made up of stones tied together with strings that are thrown around an animal/human's legs to trip them up.
Are there any such weapons used by iron Age Finnish?

3) Can we please have a lasso system to capture forest reindeer?

[Signatus]

1) Can we have a harpoon for stabbing seals and reeling them in?

It's called the ango

3) Can we please have a lasso system to capture forest reindeer?

That makes no sense...

[Bert Preast]

1) It would be nice to be able to attach ropes to the ango so as to attempt to hold a speared seal... though obviously if the seal weighs more than you do then it's unlikely to end well!  Maybe tying the bitter end of the ropes off on a tree would work, but it would often be a long wait to ambush a seal in range.

2)  That's a bolas, and I don't think one would be any use in a forest.  Where a spear or arrow may penetrate undergrowth to hit an animal's legs, a bolas won't.

3)  I have seen Sami people using lassos to control tamed reindeer, but I reckon you'd have to get very close to get an un-penned wild reindeer with one.

[Dungeon Smash]

I would agree that a rope tied around the ango would be quite nice.  Not sure if it's historical or not

[More_tribal_interaction]

I'm 150% sure that harpoons for whales/seals have been in use by seafaring cultures for very long. What I don't know is whether harpoons were used in Iron Age Finland.

As for Signatus' reply, you are aware that the ango doesn't come with *rope* right? How can something be a harpoon if it doesn't have rope attached?

@ bert preast, you can use dogs to run the reindeer to exhaustion before lassoing? It would be fun to be Klaus and gather your own reindeer tribe. All you would be missing are short helpers with pointy ears...

[Ara D.]

Did some very light googling I did not find any fin specific information but other northern peoples who hunt with harpoons sometimes add a float or bag that tires the animal as it drags it through the water. Also on has to remember that while a seal may be heavier than a human the question is how much can the seal pull in the water it's doubtful that it can pull equal to it's weight as it gas nothing to push off of other than water.

[Signatus]

I'm 150% sure that harpoons for whales/seals have been in use by seafaring cultures for very long. What I don't know is whether harpoons were used in Iron Age Finland.

As for Signatus' reply, you are aware that the ango doesn't come with *rope* right? How can something be a harpoon if it doesn't have rope attached?

The ango (or angon) is barbed in such away that it's really hard, if not impossible, for the victim to remove it. They'll likely just die from their wounds. We know that angos were used about a 1000 years ago in Finland, but a harpoon not so much. It's possible, but it's also something that would probably need a boat and more people, no? Can a human really reel in a huge seal on their own?

I also see a problem with programming these ropes going around the map as the creature moves... it would be cool if they could get tangled in a couple trees/rocks, but that must be hell to program correctly. I think a bolas would be easier as a way to immobilize targets.

[Dungeon Smash]

Maybe the float/drag system then?  When ango hits an animal, a drag is attached... animal tires much more quickly, especially swimming seals.  Currently, seals are VERY hard to hunt... probably one of the most challenging animals in the game.  Maybe this is historically accurate but I'd be in favor of any invention that would give humans a fighting chance...

[Saiko Kila]

Sami people have been using harpoons for thousands of years, certainly before middle ages. And they used (and still use) to hunt walruses and whales, apart from seals. The people in UrW are based on Sami, so I don't see a reason other than technical to not implement it.

However, not all changes in the game in the past bring it closer to reality, some changes actually make it less close. For example Sami use a method of hunting reindeer by skiing in deep snow, tiring the reindeer, and finishing it with spears or arrows. It used to be easy and possible in UrW, but after changes to the skiing not so much.

[Signatus]

Sami people have been using harpoons for thousands of years, certainly before middle ages. And they used (and still use) to hunt walruses and whales, apart from seals. The people in UrW are based on Sami, so I don't see a reason other than technical to not implement it.

OBJECTION! *points finger*

The harpoon was central to the whale fisheries of the world. Harpoons have been used for at least a thousand years to capture whales and large fish. The Basques of 900 A.D. were among the earliest whalers. Their word arpoi, meaning to fasten or hold, became arpon in Spanish, and harpoon, or harping iron, in English.

http://www.whalecraft.net/Harpoons.html

As I mentioned before, harpoons evolved off the ango/javelin, which appeared around the iron age and roman empire. If the earliest whalers were in 900 CE that makes it even harder for people in Finland to have that technological improvement. It was also really inefficient, and was based on fastening the whale to the boat.

As for the Sami being the inspiration, I believe that only applies to the northern tribes. The driik are very obviously based around Finns proper, who were the most commercial and "advanced" peoples there, often in contact with Scandinavia. Hence the "hillforts" made of big rocks

That being said, I couldn't really find any info on the Sami using harpoons. Also, aren't seals relatively easy to run after when in land?

The ango has the biggest attack bonus of all the weapons. Maybe it gets stuck and slows enemies down? I've never used one so I wouldn't know

[Brygun]

The biggest confusion for me in this thread is that Sami is the name of the developer of the software and appears Sami is also a cultural group in northern Finland.

So yes... we can pin this on Sami.

[Signatus]

They might not have harpoons, but they do have the Sámi knife (lapinleuku), which I assume to be the Northern knife in-game, and the guksi, which is essentially a carved birch drinking cup, specifically from birch burls. Video for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwvhGwsE3hs

We could either start calling them Saami, or perhaps we should rename Sami himself to "Santa's little programming monkey" or just "The Dev" 

[Saiko Kila]

If you define the harpoon as something which is attached to the boat, then they didn't use this kind of contraption. But I use the definition that harpoon is the the spear with a strong line attached. And they used it - they attached it to a bladder or bag or some other float, to both impede movement of the animal, and to retrieve it easier from the water later.

Actually I use "harpoon" for fish spears in general, because many archaeologists use this word in this meaning. The oldest harpoon named as such is made from deer antlers, it was initially dated 6000-8000 years (later revised to ~12000 after carbon dating), and of course there is no shaft anymore (because it was wooden), it's named the Leman and Ower Bank Harpoon, and was tied to a Kunda culture, which are by scientists considered ancestors (or rather one of ancestors) of Sami. Still, if the carbon dating is correct, it was made by some even older culture...

Also only one group of Sami regularly pursues whales (Sjo Sami, a.k.a Sea Lapps), others do it only when the whales are in the shallow coastal waters. But all groups living near seal hunt seals.

[Signatus]

If you define the harpoon as something which is attached to the boat, then they didn't use this kind of contraption. But I use the definition that harpoon is the the spear with a strong line attached. And they used it - they attached it to a bladder or bag or some other float, to both impede movement of the animal, and to retrieve it easier from the water later.

Do you have any source for the bag thing? Because I searched and could find no mention of a bag nor a rope: http://northernwildernesskills.blogspot.com/2018/01/sjalen-seal-hunting-in-northern-baltic.html

Actually I use "harpoon" for fish spears in general, because many archaeologists use this word in this meaning.

But in that case we're talking exactly about the ango:



Source: http://thethegns.blogspot.com/2011/11/angon-english-heavy-javelin.html

It does seem that the Wiki has a picture of an ango including a rope, though, but I found absolutely no mention of ropes used in seal hunting or along with spears, while references to the "typical Finnish angon" or "Finnish angon javelin" are easy to find, and is clearly mentioned as there being a local version used in the Late Iron age.

Also only one group of Sami regularly pursues whales (Sjo Sami, a.k.a Sea Lapps), others do it only when the whales are in the shallow coastal waters. But all groups living near seal hunt seals.

Not disputing that, I'm just questioning the usefulness of a rope attached to the ango when you're hunting a 300 kg creature across the ice. Alone. You're not going to dive into the breathing hole and chase it, right?

[Ara D.]

The float/drag was not Finnish but from a first nation tribe. I was going off the idea that people in similar environments and with similar resources would develop similar technologies. As to the 300kg animal it may very well be able to generate enough force to pull a man but it  is swimming in water which will severely curtail it's ability to move a land based object.