Editing Archery (section)

===Protective equipment===
{{Main|Bracer|Finger tab|Thumb ring}}
[[File:Finger-tab hg.jpg|thumb|A right-hand finger tab to protect the hand while the string is drawn]]

Most modern archers wear a [[bracer (archery)|bracer]] (also known as an arm-guard) to protect the inside of the bow arm from being hit by the string and prevent clothing from catching the bowstring. The bracer does not brace the arm; the word comes from the armoury term "[[brassard]]", meaning an armoured sleeve or badge. The [[Navajo people]] have developed highly ornamented bracers as non-functional items of adornment.<ref name="ketoh">{{cite web
 |title=Ketoh 
 |url=http://www.millicentrogers.org/ketoh.htm 
 |publisher=Millicent Rogers Museum of Northern New Mexico 
 |access-date=6 May 2009 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080908045648/http://www.millicentrogers.org/ketoh.htm 
 |archive-date=8 September 2008 
}}</ref> Some archers (nearly all female archers) wear protection on their chests, called chestguards or plastrons. The myth of the [[Amazons]] was that they had one breast removed to solve this problem.<ref>{{Cite OED|Amazon}}</ref> [[Roger Ascham]] mentions one archer, presumably with an unusual shooting style, who wore a leather guard for his face.<ref name="ascham">{{citation
| title= Toxophilus – the School of Shooting
| last= Ascham| first = Roger
| year= 1545
| publisher= Read Books| isbn= 978-1846643699
}}</ref>

The drawing digits are normally protected by a leather [[finger tab|tab]], glove, or [[thumb ring]]. A simple tab of leather is commonly used, as is a skeleton glove. Medieval Europeans probably used a complete leather glove.<ref name="warbow">{{citation
| author1= Strickland, M.
| title= The Great Warbow
| author2= Hardy, R.
| publisher= Sutton Publishing
| year= 2005
| isbn= 978-0750931670
}}</ref>

Eurasiatic archers who used the thumb or Mongolian draw protected their thumbs, usually with leather according to the author of ''Arab Archery'',<ref>
{{Citation
 |last = Faris
 |first = Nabih Amin
 |title = Arab Archery
 |publisher = Kessinger
 |year = 2007
 |isbn = 978-1432628833
 }}
</ref> but also with [[thumb ring|special rings]] of various hard materials. Many surviving Turkish and Chinese examples are works of considerable art. Some are so highly ornamented that the users could not have used them to loose an arrow. Possibly these were items of personal adornment, and hence value, remaining extant whilst leather had virtually no intrinsic value and would also deteriorate with time. In traditional [[Kyūdō|Japanese archery]] a special [[yugake|glove]] is used that has a ridge to assist in drawing the string.<ref name="Elmer R.P. pages 345-349">Elmer, R. P. ''Target Archery'' (1952), pp. 345–349</ref>