Austroasiatic crossbow
The Austroasiatic crossbow which is also known as the Hmong primitive bow, the Jarai crossbow, or the Angkorian crossbow is a crossbow used for war and for hunting in Southeastern Asia. It has become a symbol of pride and identity for ethnic groups from Myanmar (Burma) to the confines of Indochina. Terminology The Austroasiatic crossbow is known as sna in Khmer, chrao in Brao hneev in Hmong, or hraŏ in Jarai. It is one of the few Austroasiatic loanwords found in Sino-Tibetan languages as linguists have found it to be related the Chinese crossbow known as nu () : "the Southern origin of this term is indisputable but the origin of the term is uncertain". History Fight of the origins: Austroasiatic vs. Chinese While the majority opinion is that the crossbow was of Chinese origin, there is another theory pointing towards an independent Southeast Asian origin for the crossbow based on the aforementioned linguistic evidence: Around the third century BC, King An Dương Vương of Âu Lạc (modern-day northern Vietnam) and (modern-day southern China) commissioned a man named Cao Lỗ (or Cao Thông) to construct a "magic crossbow" (nỏ thần), one shot from which could fire 300 arrows. According to