Some very unusual weapons have been turned over to the RCMP in North Vancouver.
Two 70-centimetre-long Masai arrows, said to be tipped with poisonous arrowheads, were recently handed over to the local detachment by a North Vancouver resident.
The man told police the antique arrows had been given to him by his late father, who brought them back from Kenya in the 1940s.
The senior told police he considered the arrows dangerous weapons and didn’t want to have them in his home any more.
Cpl. Richard De Jong, spokesman for the North Vancouver RCMP, said the man was always told while growing up not to touch the arrows because they were poisonous.
De Jong said police don’t know if the arrowheads do contain any poison, but they have been handled as though they might, just in case.
The Masai tribe is known for using poison-tipped arrows.
Rather than destroy the arrows, De Jong said officers contacted staff at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, who plan to have a curator take a look at the arrows before deciding whether to take them on as part of the museum’s artifact collection.
Although everything from Second World War rifles to illegal handguns have previously been turned over to the North Vancouver RCMP, De Jong said the arrows are definitely among the more unusual weapons to be handed over.
