Walk into any of the small bamboo workshops tucked behind Shillong's Bara Bazar early on a weekday morning, and you will find a quiet, methodical world. A man sits cross-legged on a wooden platform, shaving long bamboo strips with a small curved knife, pausing every few seconds to test the curve of the wood against the floor. A boy beside him scrapes iron arrow tips clean with sand. In the corner, a finished bow leans against the wall, its limbs pale and freshly oiled. These workshops produce the equipment that quietly makes Teer possible: every bow drawn at the Polo Ground, every arrow fired in Khanapara, every cylindrical target raised in Jowai. This guide walks through how that equipment is made, who makes it, and why the craft matters far beyond the result number that gets posted at the end of each round.
Teer is unusual among regulated sports because the result is generated entirely by physical equipment, not by an electronic draw or a random-number generator. The official result for each round is the last two digits of the total arrows that lodge in a bamboo target during a timed shooting session. That total can range anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand, depending on the number of archers and the time available. Every single arrow on the target counts. An arrow that flies wide, an arrow that hits but falls out, an arrow that bounces off the surface, none of these contribute to the count.
The implication is straightforward. The integrity of the final number depends on equipment that performs predictably. Bows that draw inconsistently produce arrows that miss. Arrows that warp produce flights that veer off line. Targets that crumble after repeated strikes record fewer arrows than were actually shot at them. So while the archer and the officials are the visible faces of the sport, the people who shape the bamboo and forge the small iron tips are equally essential to the integrity of every count. This is the part of Teer that very rarely gets photographed, and it is the part most worth understanding if you want to know how the sport actually functions.
A traditional Khasi bow, known in the Khasi language as a riew, starts life in a stand of mature male bamboo. The species used most often is one of the medium-thickness Meghalaya bamboos, prized for its straight grain and its tolerance to seasonal humidity swings. A culm with the right thickness and a long, unblemished section between nodes is cut close to the ground, the leaves and small branches stripped off, and the cut piece carried back to the workshop to dry for several weeks. Rushing this drying step is a known way to produce a bow that warps within a season, so experienced makers will simply refuse to begin shaping a culm that has not aged enough.
Shaping is done entirely by hand. The maker measures the archer's draw length, marks the grip section in the middle, and then begins shaving each limb outward toward the tip with a small curved knife. The work is slow and progressive. A skilled maker will pull the bow gently to test its flex every minute or two, watching whether the curve is symmetric and whether the limbs are bending evenly. Any asymmetry at this stage means the arrow will not fly true later, and an asymmetric bow is the kind of equipment that produces stray arrows during a real round.
Once the bow is shaped, the tips are notched, a string is tied between them, and the bow is left to settle. A few days later the maker draws it several times in a row, files away any rough spots that catch the string, and applies a light coat of oil to seal the wood. A good Khasi bow will then serve an archer for a year or two of steady use before needing to be replaced. The serious shooter will own several bows of slightly different draw weights, choosing the right one for the conditions of the day.
💡 Bamboo behaves very differently from yew or fibreglass, the materials used in Olympic recurve bows. It is lighter, more forgiving on a missed release, but also more weather-sensitive. A bow that draws cleanly in dry weather can feel sluggish during the monsoon, which is one of the reasons a Khasi archer often carries more than one bow to the ground.
An arrow used in Khasi Hills Teer is built from three components: a long thin bamboo shaft, a small iron tip at the head, and a wedge of paper or feather at the nock end for stability in flight. The shaft is cut to length from straight-grained bamboo, then shaved with a small plane until it is uniformly thin. Diameter is critical. Too thick and the arrow flies sluggishly, losing kinetic energy on the way to the target. Too thin and the shaft flexes too much during release, sending the arrow wide. Most makers settle on a diameter that is roughly the thickness of a pencil, varied slightly by individual archer preference.
The iron tip is the smallest piece of metalwork in the entire sport. It is a short hollow cone, hammered from a strip of iron at a small forge nearby, fitted onto the front end of the shaft and held with a thin band of pitch or glue. The tip is what allows the arrow to lodge in the bamboo target rather than bounce off, so its sharpness and balance matter quite a lot. Over the years, some workshops have switched to standardised steel tips bought in bulk, but a fair number of clubs still source tips from local forges out of habit and quality preference.
At the back end of the arrow, a small wedge of bird feather or, today, often a folded scrap of card or paper, is glued in place to stabilise the arrow in flight. This is the fletching. It works the same way the feathers on a dart work, spinning the arrow slightly and helping it hold its line through the air. The fletching is small because the shooting distance is short and the arrow does not need much stabilisation, but skipping the fletching altogether produces arrows that tumble in the air and miss the target by a wide margin.
Each archer carries a fixed quota of arrows for the timed shooting session, usually around thirty. These are kept in a simple woven quiver or a tube of bamboo that hangs from the shoulder. A serious archer will keep their arrows numbered or marked, so they can identify their own arrows when picking them up after the round and check for damage.
The most physically unusual piece of equipment at any Teer ground is the target itself. It is not a flat board, not a printed circle, but a tall vertical cylinder of bundled bamboo strips, planted upright in the ground at the shooting line's downrange end. A typical target stands roughly 70 centimetres tall and 30 centimetres across. It looks, at first glance, like a fat candle.
The construction is straightforward and the choice of materials is dictated by performance. Long strips of split bamboo, each a few centimetres wide, are gathered into a tight bundle. The bundle is wrapped with cord at several heights to keep it firm, and one end is sharpened into a point so the entire pillar can be driven into the soil at the ground. The bamboo bundle gives the target two important properties. First, it is dense enough that an arrow striking with normal energy will sink in and lodge rather than bouncing back. Second, the strands run vertically, which means an arrow lodges into the bundle along its grain, giving a clean recordable hit that does not disturb the strands around it.
Targets wear out. After a day or two of heavy shooting, the front face of a target develops thousands of small puncture marks, and the bundle begins to lose its firmness. A worn target holds fewer arrows reliably, which is bad for the integrity of the count. Clubs maintain a rotation of targets, replacing or rebuilding them on a schedule, and a fresh target is set up before any major round. The clubs that take this work seriously also keep records of how many shooting sessions a target has handled, so they can predict when a rebuild is due.
Beyond the bow, arrows, and target, a competent Khasi archer carries a small but considered set of auxiliary equipment. An armguard protects the inside of the bow arm from the string slap that happens on every release; it is usually a strip of leather, plastic, or padded cloth, tied at the wrist and elbow. A finger tab or simple glove protects the fingers of the draw hand from the string, which can fatigue and chafe the skin badly during a long shooting session.
The quiver is the simplest piece. Most often it is a length of bamboo tube, polished smooth on the inside so arrows draw out cleanly, with a strap of plant fibre or leather to sling it over the shoulder. Some archers carry their arrows in a cloth wrap instead, while a smaller number use commercial archery quivers bought online or in the bigger sports shops in Guwahati. The choice depends on personal preference and budget.
Few archers carry stabilisers or sights of the kind used in Olympic archery. The shooting distance in Teer is short, the rate of fire is high, and the archer is not aiming for the centre of a small printed target. They are aiming to plant as many arrows as possible inside a tall pillar in front of them within a short timed window. Sights and stabilisers would only slow them down. Instinctive shooting, refined by years of practice, is the universal style.
Most equipment used at the Polo Ground in Shillong, at the Khanapara grounds near the Meghalaya and Assam border, and at the Jaintia Hills counters in Jowai and Ladrymbai is made by family workshops in and around Shillong, with a smaller number of craftsmen in Jowai and the western Khasi Hills. The trade is informal, almost invisible to the casual visitor, and almost entirely hereditary. A bow maker today is very likely the son or grandson of a bow maker.
A typical workshop is a single room, sometimes with a small open courtyard for splitting bamboo. The tools are simple: a few curved knives, a small plane, a clamp, an oil-stone, and a small forge in the corner if iron tips are made on site. There is no machinery beyond the occasional electric file or sander used for finishing. Output varies. A workshop run by one experienced maker and one assistant can produce a dozen finished bows and several hundred arrows in a week, depending on the season and the size of bulk orders.
| Equipment | Primary Material | Where Made | Replacement Cycle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bow (riew) | Mature male bamboo | Family workshops, Shillong & Jowai | 1 to 2 seasons of regular use |
| Arrows | Bamboo shaft, iron tip, paper or feather fletching | Same workshops or sub-contracted | Daily wear, broken arrows replaced as needed |
| Target (cylinder) | Bundled bamboo strips, cord wrap | Built on-site at the ground by ground staff | Days to weeks, depending on use |
| Armguard, finger tab, quiver | Leather, cloth, bamboo | Local leatherworkers or homemade | Several seasons |
The economics are modest. A finished bow sells for a few hundred rupees, an arrow for a small fraction of that. A bow maker working full time during the busy season can earn a respectable income, but most operate on the boundary between trade and tradition, supplementing equipment sales with other small handicraft work. The Khasi Hills Archery Sports Association has at times floated the idea of standardising equipment specifications across affiliated clubs, but the workshops remain independent and the specifications informal.
The interesting question for anyone who follows Teer closely is whether the traditional craft of equipment-making will continue much longer. The number of young people learning bow making in the Khasi Hills has dropped over the last two decades. Bamboo as a material is plentiful, but the skilled hands that work it are getting older. A few workshops have begun to use simple jigs and power tools to speed up some shaping steps, which raises an honest debate within the craft community about whether the resulting bow is meaningfully the same object.
So far, the craft has held on. Demand from clubs remains steady, and the most respected makers continue to teach apprentices, often within their own families. The state government has explored craft-protection schemes that could classify Khasi archery equipment-making as a recognised traditional handicraft, which would unlock training subsidies and apprenticeship grants. Whether or not those schemes mature into policy, the underlying truth is that Teer cannot run without this craft. Every round of every game day requires a fresh set of equipment, and every piece of that equipment passes through someone's hands before it ever reaches the shooting line.
For broader context on the sport itself, see our pieces on the equipment in use, on 200 years of Khasi archery history, and on the Khasi Hills Archery Sports Association, which governs the modern game. The methodology page documents how the daily result is verified once the arrows are counted.
Follow the live Shillong, Khanapara, Juwai, and Night Teer numbers as the official declarations come in. Same fast page, four counters, no forwarded screenshots.
Open the Live Result PageThe traditional bamboo bow, called a riew in Khasi, hand-shaped from a single mature culm of male bamboo. The grip section is left thicker for stability and the limbs are shaved progressively thinner toward the tips. The bow is fitted to the archer's draw length, and a serious archer will own several bows of slightly different draw weights for different shooting conditions.
A thin bamboo shaft about 60 to 70 centimetres long, a small iron tip at the head, and a small wedge of bird feather or paper fletching at the nock end for stability in flight. The shaft is cut from straight-grained bamboo and dried before being shaped. Each archer carries a fixed quota of arrows for the timed round, usually around thirty per session.
The target is a tall cylinder, roughly 70 centimetres in height and 30 centimetres in diameter, built from a tight bundle of bamboo splints. The bundle is wrapped with cord and planted vertically at the shooting ground. It is rebuilt or replaced when the surface is no longer firm enough to record arrow strikes cleanly. Because the round's result is the last two digits of the total arrows that lodge in the target, a target that holds arrows reliably is essential to a fair count.
Mostly family workshops in and around Shillong, with a smaller number of craftsmen in Jowai and Mawkyrwat. The trade is largely informal and passes from one generation to the next within families. A few clubs maintain in-house bow-makers, and during the busy season some craftsmen produce equipment full time. A finished bow sells for a few hundred rupees and an arrow for a small fraction of that.
Yes, indirectly. The result of every round is the last two digits of the total arrows that strike the target during the timed window. Bows that draw consistently, arrows that fly straight, and a target that holds shots all support an accurate count. Defective equipment can throw off the total, which is why clubs invest in maintenance and rotate target cylinders. The result number itself remains the count of arrows on the target, nothing more and nothing less.
The story of Khasi Hills archery equipment is the story of a small, careful craft that holds the sport together. A bow takes weeks to make, a target takes hours, an arrow takes minutes. The people who do this work do not appear in the daily result tables and they do not get applause when an FR number is declared. But every Teer round depends on their consistency, and the quiet workshops behind Shillong's busy markets remain one of the most quietly important parts of the entire system. If the craft fades, the sport changes shape with it, and that is reason enough to pay attention to it now.
For today's live FR and SR numbers across Shillong, Khanapara, Juwai, and Night Teer, head to the live result page. For more on how those numbers are sourced and verified, see our methodology and editorial policy.