Depends on who you ask, and their personal definition--or if you are shooting a tournament, it depends on the rules the organizers set. For me, there is a distinction between traditional and primitive, but the two terms often get used as if they are the same thing.

Back before compounds, sights (manufactured and improvised) were common. Gap shooting was (and is) common--and that's just using the tip of your arrow as a sight pin.

Want to get right down to it, to be truely "primitive" you are going to have to use a rock, or your teeth, to hack (or chew) a bow out of a stave, choke a squirrel with your bare hands so you can use it's hide for a string and hopefullyhave enough left over to haft stone broadheads to your river cane shaft; then scratch around for some feathers to stick to those arrows with some pine pitch (and maybe a little sinew from the squirrell).

Personally, I don't care if someone goes to those extremes, or wants to cut an osage bow out of a stave with a bandsaw and finish it off with an electric sander, or prefers a bow with a machined aluminum riser cut out with a CNC machine. It will, however,bug me if one or the other wants to look down their nose at me due to my choice of equipment.

My preferance is a deflex/reflex (laminated) longbow with a Dynaflight '97 (one of the most modern fibers available) string, and Port Orford Cedar arrows (started using them to meet tournament regs, now I just like them). Since I'm the only first one in my immediate family to get involved with archery, the tradition starts with me.

Short answer, don't get hung up on what someone else considers traditional. Unless you shoot tournaments (where you will have to use equipment within the tournament guidelines), shoot what you like and enjoy--life's too short to argue about what is or isn't "traditional".[8D]

Chad