The Point Barrow Expedition

All the men are now supplied with excellent knives of civilized manufacture, mostly butcher knives or sheath knives of various patterns, which they employ for numerous purposes, such as skinning and butchering game, cutting up food, and rough whittling. Fine whittling and carving is usually done with the “crooked knife,” to be described further on. In whittling the knife is grasped so that the blade projects on the ulnar side of the hand and is drawn toward the workman. A pocketknife, of which they have many of various patterns, is used in the same way. I observed that the Asiatic Eskimo at Plover Bay held the knife in the same manner. Capt. Lyon, in describing a man whittling 151 at Winter island, says: “As is customary with negroes, he cut toward the left hand and never used the thumb of the right, as we do, for a check to the knife.”273 This apparently refers to a similar manner of holding the knife. Before the introduction of iron, knives appear to have been always made of slate, worked by grinding. We obtained twenty-six more or less complete knives, most of which are genuine old implements, which have been preserved as heirlooms or amulets. These knives are either single or double edged, and the double-edged knives may be divided into four classes, according to their shape. The first class consists of rather small knives with the edges straight or only slightly curved, tapering to a sharp or truncated point, with the butt terminating in a short broad tang slightly narrower than the blade, which is inserted in the end of a straight wooden haft, at least as long as the blade. The commonest material is a hard, dark purple slate, though some are of black or dark gray slate. Of this class we have three complete knives and five blades without the haft.

No. 89584 [1107] (figured in Point Barrow Rept., Ethnology, Pl. III, Fig. 3), will represent this class. It is a blade of dark purple slate, ground smooth, 3.5 inches long, tapering from a width of 1.3 inches at the butt, with curved edges to a sharp point, and beveled on both faces from the middle line to the edges, and the flat tang is inserted into a cleft in the end of a straight haft of spruce. The blade is secured by a whipping of about fifteen turns of sinew braid lodged in a broad shallow groove round the end of the haft. In a hole in the other end of the haft is looped a short lanyard of seal thong. Fig. 99a, No. 89581 [1011], is a knife of the same class and about the same size, having a haft 4 inches and a blade 3 inches long. The blade is secured by two lashings, of which the first is a narrow strip of whalebone, and the other of sinew braid. The materials of blade and haft are the same as before. No. 89585 [1710] (Fig. 99b), has a blade of dark gray slate, and the haft, which appears to be of cotton wood, is in two longitudinal sections. The 152 lashing which holds these two sections together is of braided sinew. Of the blades, the only sharp-pointed one, No. 56684 [228] (Fig. 100), is like the blade of 89584 [1107], but rather larger. The others all have rounded or truncated points and are not over 3½ inches long, including the tang, but otherwise closely resemble the blades already described. They all show signs of considerable age and several of them are nicked and gapped on the edge from use. Knives of this class are not like any in use at the present day, and it was not possible to learn definitely whether this shape served any special purpose. We were, however, given to understand that the sharp-pointed ones were sometimes, at least, used for stabbing. Perhaps they were used specially for cutting up the smaller animals.

The second class, of which there are four specimens, is not unlike the first, but the blade is short and broad, with strongly curved edges, and always sharp pointed, while the haft is always much longer than the blade. Instead of being evenly beveled off on both faces from the middle line to the edges, they are either slightly convex, worked down gradually to the edge, or flat with narrowly beveled edges. They are all small knives, the longest being 8.3 inches long, with the blade projecting 3.1 inches from the haft, and the shortest 4.9 inches, with the blade projecting only 1.4 inches.

Fig. 101, No. 89583 [1305], is a knife of this class, with the blade a nearly equilateral triangle (1.4 inches long and 1.3 inches wide at the base), with a flat wooden haft as wide as the blade and 3½ inches long, cleft at the tip and lashed with thirteen or fourteen turns of sinew braid. The holes near the butt of the haft were probably to receive a lanyard. Fig. 102, No. 89591 [1016], is another form of the same class. The blade is secured by a single rivet of wood.

The third class consists of large knives, with long, broad, lanceolate blades, and short straight hafts. There is only one complete specimen, No. 89592 [1002], Fig. 103. This has a blade of soft, light greenish 153 slate, 6 inches long and 2.6 inches broad, with the edges broadly beveled on both faces. The haft of spruce is in two longitudinal sections, put together so as to inclose the short tang of the blade, and is secured by a tight whipping of eighteen turns of fine seal twine, and painted with red ocher. This knife is new and was made for sale, but is undoubtedly a correct model of an ancient pattern, as No. 56676 [204] (Fig. 104), which is certainly ancient, appears to be the blade of just such a knife. We were told that the latter was intended for cutting blubber. This perhaps means that it was a whaling knife. Mr. Nelson brought home a magnificent knife of precisely the same pattern, made of light green jade.

The two knives, representing the fourth class, are both new and made for sale, having blades of soft slate. As we obtained no genuine knives of this pattern, it is possible that they are merely commercial fabrications. The two knives are very nearly alike, but the larger, No. 89590 [984] (Fig. 105), is the more carefully made. The blade is of light greenish gray slate, 6.2 inches long and 2 inches broad, and is straight nearly to the tip, where it curves to a sharp point, making a blade like that of the Roman gladius. The haft is a piece sawed out of the beam of an antler, and has a cleft sawed in one end to receive the short broad tang of the blade. The whipping is of sinew braid.

The single-edged knives were probably all meant specially for cutting food, and are all of the same general pattern, varying in size from a blade only 2½ inches long to one of 7 inches. The blade is generally more strongly curved along the edge than on the back and is usually sharp-pointed. It is fitted with a broad tang to a straight haft, usually shorter than the blade. There are in the collection four complete knives and five unhafted blades. No. 89597 [1052] (Fig. 106) is a typical knife of this kind. The blade is of black slate, rather rough, and is 5.6 inches long (including the tang). The tang, which is about one-half inch long and the same breadth, is lashed against one end of the flat haft of bone which is cut away to receive it, with five turns of stout seal thong. No. 89594 [1053] differs from the preceding only in having the tang inserted in a cleft in the end of the haft, and No. 89589a 154 [1054] has the back more curved than the edge, the haft of antler and the lashing of whalebone. All three are of very rude workmanship. No. 89587 [1587], is a small knife with a truncated point and the tang imbedded without lashing in the end of a roughly made haft of bone.

Most of the blades are those of knives similar to the type, more smoothly finished, but No. 56712 [226] (Fig. 107a) is noticeable for the extreme “belly” of the edge and the smoothness with which the faces are beveled from back to edge. Such knives approach the woman’s round knife (ulu, ulu´ra). No. 89601 [776] (Fig. 107b) is almost double-edged, the back being rounded off. Fig. 108, No. 89631 [1081], is a very remarkable form of slate knife, of which this was the only specimen seen. In shape it somewhat resembles a hatchet, having a broad triangular blade with a strongly curved cutting edge, along the back of which is fitted a stout haft of bone 12½ inches long. The blade is of soft, dark purple slate, ground smooth, and resembles the modern knives in having the sharp cutting edge beveled almost wholly on one face. The haft is the foreshaft of an old whale harpoon, and is made of whale’s bone. The back of the blade is fitted into a deep narrow saw cut, and held on by three very neat lashings of narrow strips of whalebone, each of which passes through a hole drilled through the blade close to the haft and through a pair of vertical holes in the haft on each side of the blade. These holes converge towards the back of the haft and are joined by a deep channel, so that the lashing is countersunk below the surface of the haft. This implement was brought down from Nuwŭk and offered for sale as a knife anciently used for cutting off the blubber of a whale. The purchaser got the impression that it was formerly attached to a long pole and used like a whale spade. On more careful examination after our return it was discovered that the haft was really part of an old harpoon and that the lashings and holes to receive them were evidently newer than the haft.

It is possible that the blade may have been long ago fitted to the haft and that the tool may have been used as described. That knives of this sort were occasionally used by the Eskimo is shown by a specimen in the Museum from Norton Sound. This is smaller than the one described but has a slate blade of nearly the same shape and has a haft, for hand use only, put on in the same way.

With such knives as these the cut is made by drawing the knife toward the user instead of pushing it away, as in using the round knife. We found no evidence that these Eskimo ever used knives of ivory (except for cutting snow) or ivory knives with bits of iron inlaid in the edge, such as have been observed among those of the East.

Fig. 109, No. 89477 [1422], is a very extraordinary implement, which was brought down from Point Barrow and which has evidently been exposed alongside of some corpse at the cemetery. The blade is a long, flat, thin piece of whalebone wedged between the two parts of the haft, which has been sawed lengthwise for 6½ inches to receive it. The haft is a slender piece of antler. No other specimens of the kind were seen, nor have similar implements, to my knowledge, been observed elsewhere. The natives insisted that it was genuine, and was formerly used for cutting blubber.

I have introduced four figures of old iron or steel knives, of which we have six specimens, in order to show the way in which the natives in early days, when iron was scarce, utilized old case-knives and bits of tools, fitting them with hafts of their own make. All agree in having the edge beveled on the upper face only. All the knives which they obtain from the whites at the present day are worked over with a file so as to bring the bevel on one face only. Fig. 110, No. 89296 [970], from Nuwŭk, has a blade of iron, and the flat haft is made of two longitudinal sections of reindeer antler, held together with four large rivets nearly equidistant. The two which pass through the tang are of brass and the other two of iron. The blade is 3.6 inches long, the haft 4.1 long and 0.9 broad. Fig. 110, No. 89294 [901], from Utkiavwĭñ, has a short, thick, and sharp-pointed blade, and is hafted in the same way with antler, one section of the haft being cut out to receive the short, thick tang. The first two rivets are of iron, the other three of brass and not quite long enough to go wholly through the haft. The blade is barely 2 inches long. Fig. 111a, No. 89297 [1125], from Nuwŭk, has a short blade, 2½ inches long, and the two sections of the 156 haft are held together, not by rivets, but by a close spiral lasting of stout seal thong extending the whole length of the haft. No. 89293 [1330], Fig. 111b, from Utkiavwĭñ, has a peculiarly shaped blade, which is a bit of some steel tool imbedded in the end of a straight bit of antler 4 inches long. One of these knives, not figured, is evidently part of the blade of an old-fashioned curved case knife. It is stamped with the name “Wilson,” and underneath this are three figures, of which only <> can be made out. This may be a table knife bought or stolen from the Plover in 1852-’54.

There is in the collection one large double-edged knife (Fig. 112, No. 89298 [1162]) of precisely the same form as the slate hunting knife (Fig. 103) and Mr. Nelson’s jade knife previously mentioned. The blade is of thick sheet iron, which has in it a couple of rivet holes, and the haft of reindeer antler in two sections, held together by a large copper rivet at each end and a marline of sinew braid. Each edge has a narrow bevel on one face only, the two edges being beveled on opposite faces. There are a small number of such knives still in use, especially as hunting knives (for cutting up walrus, one man said). They are considered to be better than modern knives for keeping off evil spirits at night. As is not unusual, the antiquity of the object has probably invested it with a certain amount of superstitious regard. These knives are undoubtedly the same as the “double-edged knives (pan´-na)” mentioned by Dr. 157 Simpson (op. cit., p. 266) as brought for sale by the Nunatañmiun, who obtained them from the Siberian natives, and which he believes to be carried as far as the strait of Fury and Hecla. It would be interesting to decide whether the stone hunting knives were an original idea of the Eskimo, or whether they were copies, in stone, of the first few iron knives obtained from Siberia; but more material is needed before the matter can be cleared up.

The natives of Point Barrow, in ordinary conversation, call all knives savĭk, which also means iron, and is identically the same as the word used in Greenland for the same objects. If, then, there was a time, as these people say, when their ancestors were totally ignorant of the use of iron—and the large number of stone implements still found among them is strongly corroborative of this—the use of this name indicates that the first iron was obtained from the east, along with the soapstone lamps, instead of from Siberia. Had it first come from Siberia, as tobacco did, we should expect to find it, like the latter, called by a Russian or Siberian name.

Like all the Eskimo of North America from Cape Bathurst westward, the natives of Point Barrow use for fine whittling and carving on wood, ivory, bone, etc., “crooked knives,” consisting of a small blade, set on the under side of the end of a long curved haft, so that the edge, which is beveled only on the upper face, projects about as much as that of a spokeshave. The curve of blade and haft is such that when the under surface of the blade rests against the surface to be cut the end of the haft points up at an angle of about 45°. This knife differs essentially from the crooked carving knife so generally used by the Indians of North America. As a rule the latter has only the blade (which is often double edged) curved and stuck into the end of a straight haft. These knives are at the present time made of iron or steel and are of two sizes, a large knife, mĭ´dlĭñ, with a haft 10 to 20 inches long, intended for working on wood, and a small one, savigro´n (lit. “an instrument for shaving”), with a haft 6 or 7 inches long and intended specially for cutting bone and ivory. Both sizes are handled in the same way. The knife is held close to the blade between the index and second fingers of the right hand with the thumb over the edge, which is toward the workman. The workman draws the knife toward him, using his thumb as a check to gauge the depth of the cut. The natives use these knives with very great skill, taking off long and very even shavings and producing very neat workmanship.274

There are in the collection four large knives and thirteen small ones. No. 89278 [787] (Fig. 113) will serve as the type of the large knives. The haft is a piece of reindeer antler, flat on one face and rounded on the other, and the curve is toward the rounded face. The flat face is hollowed out by cutting away the cancellated tissue from the bend to 158 the tip, and the lower edge is sloped off so that the end of the haft is flat and narrow, with a slight twist. The blade is riveted to the flat face of the haft with three iron rivets, and is a piece of a saw countersunk flush with the surface of the haft, so that it follows its curvature. The cutting edge is beveled only on the upper face. The lower edge of the haft, from the blade to the place where it begins to narrow, is pierced with eleven equidistant holes, through which is laced a piece of sealskin thong, the two parts crossing like a shoe-lacing, to prevent the hand from slipping. The ornamental pattern on the upper face of the haft is incised and was originally colored with red ocher, but is now filled with dirt.

Fig. 114, No. 89780 [1004d], is a very long hafted knife (the haft is 12.3 inches long), but otherwise resembles the type, though not so elaborately ornamented. The blade is also a bit of a saw. It is provided with a sheath 3¼ inches long, made of black sealskin with the black side out, doubled over at one side, and sewed “over and over” down the other side and round one end. To the open end is sewed a bit of thong with a slit in the end of it, into which one end of a lanyard of seal twine 15 inches long is fastened with a becket-hitch. When the sheath is fitted over the blade the lanyard is passed through a hole in the haft and made fast by two or three turns around it. Such sheaths are often used by careful workmen. This particular knife was the property of the “inlander” Ilû´bwgɐ, previously mentioned. No. 89283 [967], from Nuwŭk, is interesting as being the only left-handed tool we obtained. The fourth knife has a blade with a cutting edge of 3½ inches, while that of each of the others is 3 inches.

The small knife differs little from the mĭ´dlĭñ except in having the haft very much shorter and not tapered off at the tip. Fig. 115a, No. 56552 [145], from Utkiavwĭñ, shows a common form of this kind of knife, though the blade usually has a sharp point like those of the large 159 knives, projecting beyond the end of the haft. This knife has a blade of iron riveted on with two iron rivets to a haft of reindeer antler. The edges of the haft close to the blade are roughened with crosscuts to prevent slipping.

The blades of the small knives are frequently inserted into a cleft in the edge of the haft, as in Fig. 115b, 89632 [827], and 89277 [1172]. The blade, in such cases, is secured by wedging it tightly, with sometimes the addition of a lashing of thong through a hole in the haft and round the heel of the blade. The blade is usually of steel, in most cases a bit of a saw and the haft of reindeer antler, generally plain, unless the circular hollows, such as are to be seen on No. 89277 [1172], which are very common, are intended for ornament. Fig. 116, No. 89275 [1183], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a rather peculiar knife. The haft, which is the only one seen of walrus ivory, is nearly straight, and the unusually long point of the blade is strongly bent up. The rivets are of copper. This knife, the history of which we did not obtain, was very likely meant both for wood and ivory. It is old and rusty and has been long in use.

All of the crooked knives in the collection are genuine implements which have been actually in use, and do not differ in type from the crooked knives in the Museum from the Mackenzie district, Kotzebue Sound, and other parts of Alaska. Similar knives appear to be used among the Siberian Eskimo and the Chukches, who have adopted their habits. Hooper (Tents, etc., p. 175), mentions “a small knife with a bent blade and a handle, generally made of the tip of a deer’s horn,” as one in general use at Plover Bay, and handled in the same skillful way 160 as at Point Barrow.275 Among the Eskimo of the central region they are almost entirely unknown. The only mention I have seen of such tools is in Parry’s Second Voyage (p. 504), where he speaks of seeing at Iglulik “several open knives with crooked wooden handles,” which he thinks “must have been obtained by communication alongshore with Hudson Bay.” I can find no specimen, figure, or description of the sa´nat (“tool”), the tool par excellence of the Greenlanders, except the following definition in Kleinschmidt’s “Grønlandsk Ordbog”: “2. Specially a narrow, long-hafted knife, which is sharpened on one side and slightly curved at the tip (and which is a Greenlander’s chief tool).” This seems to indicate that this knife, so common in the West, is equally common in Greenland.276

Whether these people used crooked knives before the introduction of iron is by no means certain, though not improbable. Fig. 117a, No. 89633 [1196], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a knife made by imbedding a flake of gray flint in the lower edge of a haft of reindeer antler, of the proper shape and curvature for a mĭdlĭñ handle. The haft is soiled and undoubtedly old, while the flaked surfaces of the flint do not seem fresh, and the edge shows slight nicks, as if it had been used. Had this knife been followed by others equally genuine looking, I should have no hesitation in pronouncing it a prehistoric knife, and the ancestor of the present steel one. The fact, however, that its purchase gave rise to the manufacture of a host of flint knives all obviously new and more and more clumsily made, until we refused to buy any more, leads me to suspect that it was fabricated with very great care from old material, and skillfully soiled by the maker.

Ten of these knives of flint were purchased within a fortnight before we detected the deceit. Fig. 117b, No. 89636 [1212] is one of the best of these counterfeits, made by wedging a freshly flaked flint blade into the haft of an old savigrón, which has been somewhat trimmed to receive the blade and soiled and charred to make it look old. Other more carelessly made ones had clumsily carved handles of whale’s bone, with roughly flaked flints stuck into them and glued in with oil dregs. All of these came from Utkiavwĭñ. Another suspicious circumstance is that a few days previously two slate-bladed crooked knives had been brought down from Nuwŭk and accepted without question as ancient. On examining the specimens since our return, I find that while the hafts are certainly old, the blades, which are of soft slate easily worked, 161 are as certainly new. Fig. 118a, 118b, represent these two knives (89580 [1062], 89586 [1061]), which have the blades lashed on with deer sinew. It is worthy of note in this connection that there are no stone knives of this pattern in the museum from any other locality.

The women employ for all purposes for which a knife or scissors could be used a semicircular knife of the same general type as those described by every writer from the days of Egede, who has had to deal with the Eskimo. The knives at the present day are made of steel, usually, and perhaps always, of a piece of a saw blade, which gives a sheet of steel of the proper breadth and thickness, and are manufactured by the natives themselves. Dr. Simpson says277 that in his time they were brought from Kotzebue Sound by the Nunatañmiun, who obtained them from the Siberian Eskimo. There are in the collection three of these steel knives, all of the small size generally called ulúrɐ (“little úlu”). No. 56546 [14] has been picked out for description (Fig. 119). The blade is wedged into a handle of walrus ivory. The ornamentation on the handle is of incised lines and dots blackened. The cutting edge of the blade is beveled on one face only. This knife represents the general shape of knives of this sort, but is rather smaller than most of them. I have seen some knives with blades fully 5 or 6 inches long and deep in proportion. The handle is almost always of walrus ivory and of the shape figured. I do not remember ever seeing an úlu blade secured otherwise than by fitting it tightly into a narrow slit in the handle, except in one case, when the handle was part of the original handle of the saw of which the knife was made, left still riveted on.

It is not necessary to specify the various purposes for which these knives are used. Whenever a woman wishes to cut anything, from her food to a thread in her sewing, she uses an úlu in preference to anything else. The knife is handled precisely as described among the eastern Eskimo, making the cut by pushing instead of drawing,278 thus differing from the long-handled round knife mentioned above. Knives of this 162 pattern are very generally used among the western Eskimo, but in the east the blade is always separated from the handle by a short shank, as in our mincing knives.

The natives of Point Barrow used round knives long before the introduction of iron. There are in the collection twenty-three more or less complete round knives of stone, most of which are genuine implements that have been used. Of these a few, which are perhaps the more recent ones, have blades not unlike the modern steel knife. For instance, No. 89680 [1106] Fig. 120, has a blade of hard gray mica slate of almost precisely the modern shape, but both faces are gradually worked down to the cutting edge without a bevel on either. The handle is very large and stout and made of coarse whale’s bone. This knife was said to have come from the ruined village at Pernyɐ. Fig. 121, No. 89679 [971], from Nuwŭk, was made for sale, but is perhaps a model of a form sometimes used. The shape of the blade is quite different from those now in use, in having the cutting edge turned so strongly to the front. The handle is of oak and the blade of rather hard, dark purple slate. Fig. 122, 89689 [985], also from Nuwŭk, and made for the market, is introduced to show a method of hafting which may have been formerly employed. The haft is of reindeer antler in two longitudinal sections, between which the blade is wedged. These two sections are held together by lashings of sinew at each end, passing through holes in each piece and round the ends. These lashings being put on wet, have shrunk so that the blade is very tightly clasped between the two parts of the handle. The commoner form of these stone knives, however, has the back of the blade much longer, so that the sides are straight instead of oblique and usually round off gradually at the ends of the cutting edge without being produced into a point at either end. No. 89682 [958] is a form intermediate between this and the modern shape, having a blade with a long back, but produced into a sharp point at one end. The handle is of reindeer antler and the blade rather soft black slate. This specimen is a very cleverly counterfeited antique.

No. 89636 [1122], Fig. 123, approaches yet nearer the ancient shape, but still has one end slightly produced. The handle is also of reindeer antler, which seems to have been very commonly used with the slate blades. The lashing round the blade close to the handle is of seal 163 thong, with the end wound spirally round all the parts on both sides and neatly tucked in. It seems to serve no purpose beyond enlarging the handle so as to make it fit the hand better. One beautiful blade of light olive green, clouded jade, No. 89675 [1170], belonged to a knife of this pattern. The older pattern is represented by No. 89676 [1586], a small knife blade from Ukiavwĭñ, which has been kept as an amulet. No. 56660 [129], is a blade of the same type, but elongated, being 7½ inches long and 2 broad. This is a very beautiful implement of pale olive jade, ground smooth. The bevel along the back of each of these blades indicates that they were to be fitted into a narrow slit in a long haft, like that of No. 89684 [886], Fig. 124, from Nuwŭk. Though both blade and handle of this specimen are very old, and have been put together in their present shape for a long time, the handle, which is of whale’s bone, evidently belonged to a longer blade, which fitted in the cleft without the need of any lashing. Fig. 125, No. 89693 [874], shows a form of handle evidently of very great antiquity, as the specimen shows signs of great age. It was purchased from a native of Utkiavwĭñ. It is made of a single piece of coarse whale’s bone. It was intended for a blade at least 7 inches long.

Fig. 126, No. 56672 [191], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a very crude, large knife, intended for use without a handle. It is of rough, hard, dark purplish slate. The upper three-quarters of both faces are almost untouched cleavage surfaces, but the lower quarter is pretty smoothly ground down to a semicircular cutting edge, which is somewhat nicked from use. 164 The angular grooves on the two faces were evidently begun with the intention of cutting the knife in two. We were told that this large knife was specially for cutting blubber. It is a genuine antique.

While ground slate is a quite common material for round knives, flint appears to have been rarely used. We obtained only three of this material. No. 89690 [1311] is a flint knife hafted with a rough, irregular lump of coarse whale’s bone. The blade is a rather thin “spall” of light gray flint, flaked round the edges into the shape of a modern ulúrɐ blade, with a very strongly curved cutting edge. Though the handle is new, the flaking of the blade does not seem fresh, so that it is possibly a genuine old blade fitted with a new haft for the market. A similar flint blade, more neatly flaked, was brought from Kotzebue Sound by Lieut. Stoney, U.S. Navy, in 1884. The other two flint knives are interesting from being made for use without handles.

No. 89691 [1360], Fig. 127, from Sidaru, is an oblong, wedge-shaped spall of gray flint, of which the back still preserves the natural surface of the pebble. It is slightly shaped by coarse flaking along the back and one end, and the edge is finely flaked into a curved outline rounding up at the ends. The specimen is old and dirty, and was probably preserved as a sort of heirloom or amulet. No. 89692 [1178] is a similar spall from a round pebble. Such knives as these are evidently the first steps in the development of the round knife. The shape of the spalls, produced by breaking a round or oval pebble of flint, would naturally suggest using them as knives, and the next step would be to improve the edge by flaking. The greater adaptability of slate, from its softness and easy cleavage, for making such knives would soon be recognized, and we should expect to find, as we do, knives like No. 56672 [191]. The next step would naturally be to provide such a knife with a haft at the point where the stone was grasped by the hand, while reducing this haft so as to leave only just enough for the grasp and cutting away the superfluous corners of the blade would give us the modern form of the blade. Round knives of slate are not peculiar to Point Barrow, but have been collected in many other places in northwestern America.279

The relationship between these knives and the semilunar slate blades found in the North Atlantic States has already been ably discussed by Dr. Charles Rau.280 It must, however, be borne in mind that while these are sufficiently “fish-cutters” to warrant their admission into a book on fishing, the cutting of fish is but a small part of the work they do. The name “fish-cutter,” as applied to these knives, would be no more 165 distinctive than the name “tobacco-cutter” for a Yankee’s jackknife.281

Adzes (udlimau).—

Even at the present day the Eskimo of Point Barrow use no tool for shaping large pieces of woodwork, except a shorthandled adz, hafted in the same manner as the old stone tools which were employed before the introduction of iron. Though axes and hatchets are frequently obtained by trading, they are never used as such, but the head is removed and rehafted so as to make an adz of it. This habit is not peculiar to the people of Point Barrow. There is a hatchet head, mounted in the same way, from the Anderson River, in the Museum collection, and the same thing was noted in Hudson’s Strait by Capt. Lyon282 and at Iglulik by Capt. Parry.283 Mr. L. M. Turner informs me that the Eskimo of Ungava, on the south side of Hudson’s Strait, who have been long in contact with the whites, have learned to use axes. The collection contains two such adzes made from small hatchets. No. 89873 [972], Fig. 128, is the more typical of the two. The blade is the head of a small hatchet or tomahawk lashed to the haft of oak with a stout thong of seal hide. The lashing is one piece, and is put on wet and shrunk tightly on. This tool is a little longer in the haft than those commonly used, and the shape and material of the haft is a little unusual, it being generally elliptical in section and made of soft wood.

Fig. 129, No. 56638 [309], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a similar adz, but the head has been narrowed by cutting off pieces from the sides (done by filing part way through and breaking the piece off), and a deep transverse groove has been cut on the front face near the butt. Part of the lashing is held in this groove as well as by the eye, the lower half of which is filled up with a wooden plug. The haft is peculiar in being a 166 piece of reindeer antler which has been reduced in thickness by sawing out a slice for 8 inches from the butt and bringing the two parts together with four stout wooden treenails about 1½ inches apart. This is preferable to trimming it down to a proper thickness from the surface, as the latter process would remove the compact tissue of the outside and expose the soft inside tissue. The whipping of seal thong just above the flange of the butt helps to give a better grip and, at the same time, to hold the parts together. As before, there are two large holes for the lashing. Adzes of this sort are used for all large pieces of wood work, such as timbers for boats, planks, and beams for houses, etc. After roughly dressing these out with the adz they are neatly smoothed off with the crooked knife, or sometimes, of late years, with the plane. The work of “getting out” the large pieces of wood is almost always done where the drift log lies on the beach. When a man wants a new stem or sternpost for his umiak, or a plank to repair his house, he searches along the beach until he finds a suitable piece of driftwood, which he claims by putting a mark on it, and sometimes hauls up out of the way of the waves. Then, when he has leisure to go at the work, he goes out with his adz and spends the day getting it into shape and reducing it to a convenient size to carry home, either slung on his back or, if too large, on a dog-sled. A man seldom takes the trouble to carry home more of a piece of timber than he actually needs for the purpose in hand.

The adz was in general use long before the introduction of iron. There is in the collection a very interesting series of ancient tools, showing the gradual development of the implement from a rude oblong block of stone worked down to a cutting edge on one end, to the steel adzes of the present day. They have, however, not even yet learned to make an eye in the head of the tool in which to insert the haft, but all tools of this class—adzes, hammers, picks, and mattocks—are lashed, with one face resting against the expanded end of the haft. Firmness is obtained by putting the lashing on wet and allowing it to shrink tight. Nearly all these ancient adzes are of jade, a material well adapted for the purpose by its hardness, which, however, renders 167 it difficult to work. Probably the oldest of these adzes is No. 56675 [69], Fig. 130, which has been selected as the type of the earliest form we have represented in the collection. This is of dark olive green, almost black, jade, 7.2 inches long, 2.8 wide, and 1.3 thick, and smoothly ground on the broader faces. The cutting edge is much broken from long use. One broad face is pretty smoothly ground, but left rough at the butt end. The other is rather flatter, but more than half of it is irregularly concave, the natural inequalities being hardly touched by grinding. Like the other dark-colored jade tools, this specimen is very much lighter on a freshly fractured surface. The dark color is believed to be due to long contact with greasy substances.

No. 89662 [900], from Nuwŭk, is an exceedingly rough adz of similar shape, but so slightly ground that it is probably one that was laid aside unfinished. From the battered appearance of the ends it seems to have been used for a hammer. It is of the same dark jade as the preceding. No. 89689 [792], from Utkiavwĭñ, is of rather light olive, opaque jade and a trifle better finished than the type, while No. 89661 [1155], Fig. 131, also from Utkiavwĭñ, is a still better piece of workmanship, the curve of the faces to the cutting edge being very graceful. The interesting point about this specimen is that a straight piece has been cut off from one side by sawing down smoothly from each face almost to the middle and breaking the piece off. We were informed that this was done to procure rods of jade for making knife sharpeners. We were informed that these stones were cut in the same way as marble and freestone are cut with us, namely, by sawing with a flat blade of iron and sand and water. A thin lamina of hard bone was probably used before the introduction of iron. Possibly a reindeer scapula, cut like the one made 168 into a saw (No. 89476 [1206], Fig. 147), but without teeth, was used for this purpose.

That such stone blades were used with a haft is shown by the only hafted specimen, No. 56628 [214], Fig. 132, from Nuwŭk. This is a rather small adz. The head of dark green jade differs from those already described only in dimensions, being 4 inches long, 2.1 wide, and 1.7 thick. The haft is of reindeer antler and in shape much like that of No. 56638 [309], but has only one hole for the lashing. The lashing is of the usual stout seal thong and put on in the usual fashion. No. 89673 [1423] is an old black adz from Sidaru of the same pattern as those described, but very smoothly and neatly made. About one-half of this specimen has been cut off for whetstones, etc.

The next step is to make the lashing more secure by cutting transverse grooves on the upper face of the head to hold the thong in place. This has been done on No. 56667 [215], figured in Point Barrow Rept., Ethnology, Pl. II, Fig. 5, an adz of dark olive green jade, from Utkiavwĭñ, which shows two such grooves, broad and shallow, running across the upper face. Of these two classes the collection contains thirteen unhafted specimens and one hafted specimen, all of jade. As cutting these grooves in the stone is a laborious process, the device of substituting some more easily worked substance for the back part of the head would naturally suggest itself.

Fig. 133, No. 89658 [1072], from Utkiavwĭñ, has a long blade of black stone with the butt slightly tapered off and imbedded in a body of whale’s bone, which has a channel 1 inch wide, for the lashing, cut round 169 it and a shallow socket on the face to receive the end of the haft. Adz heads of this same type continued in use till after the introduction of iron, which was at first utilized by inserting a flat blade of iron into just such a body, as is shown in Fig. 134 (No. 89877 [752], from the cemetery at Utkiavwĭñ).

From this type to that shown in Fig. 135 (No. 89876 [696] brought by the natives from the ruins on the Kulugrua) the transition is easy. Suppose, for the greater protection of the lashings, we inclose the channels on the sides of the head—in other words, bore holes instead of cutting grooves—we have exactly this pattern, namely, vertical eyes on each side of the head joined by transverse channels on the upper face. The specimen figured has on each side two oblong slots with a round eye between them. The blade is of iron, Fig. 136, No. 56640 [260] has two eyes on each side, and shows a different method of attaching the blade, which is countersunk flush with the upper surface of the body and secured with three stout iron rivets. The next step is to substitute horizontal eyes for the vertical ones, so as to have only one set of holes to thread the lashings through. This is seen in No. 89869 [878], Fig. 137, from Nuwŭk, which in general pattern closely resembles No. 89876 [696], but has three large horizontal eyes instead of the vertical ones. The blade is of iron and the haft of whale’s bone. The lashing is essentially the same as that of the modern adz, No. 56638 [309].

That this final type of hafting was reached before stone had gone out of use for such implements is shown by Fig. 138, No. 89839 [769], from Utkiavwĭñ, which, while very like the last in shape, has a blade 170 of hard, dark purple slate. The haft is of reindeer antler. The lashing has the short end knotted to the long part after making the first round, instead of being slit to receive the latter. Otherwise it is of the usual pattern. These composite adzes of bone and stone or iron seemed to have been common at the end of the period when stone was exclusively used and when iron first came into use in small quantities, and a good many have been preserved until the present day. We obtained four hafted and six unhafted specimens, besides seven jade blades for such composite adzes, which are easily recognizable by their small size and their shape. They are usually broad and rather thin, and narrowed to the butt, as is seen in Fig. 139, No. 56685 [71], a beautiful little adz of bright green jade 2.8 inches long and 2.3 wide, from Utkiavwĭñ. No. 56670 [246] also from Utkiavwĭñ, is a similar blade of greenish jade slightly larger, being 3.4 inches long and 2 inches wide. No. 89670 [1092] is a tiny blade of hard, fine-grained black stone, probably oil-soaked jade, only 1.7 inches long and 1.5 wide. It is very smoothly ground. Such little adzes, we were told, were especially used for cutting bone. The implement,284 which Nordenskiöld calls a “stone chisel,” found in the ruins of an old Eskimo house at Cape North, is evidently the head of one of these little bone adzes, as is plainly seen on comparing this figure with the larger adzes figured above.

I have figured two more composite adzes, which are quite different from the rest. No. 89838 [1109], Fig. 140, has a blade of neatly flaked gray flint, but this as well as the unusually straight haft is newly 171 made. These are fitted to a very old bone body, which when whole was not over 3 inches long, and was probably part of a little bone adz. There is no evidence that these people ever used flint adzes. Fig. 141, No. 89872 [785], is introduced to show how the native has utilized an old cooper’s adz, of which the eye was probably broken, by fitting it with a bone body.

While the adzes already described appear to have been the predominating types, another form was sometimes used. Fig. 142, No. 89874 [964], from Nuwŭk, represents this form. The haft is of whale’s rib, 1 foot long, and the head of bone, apparently whale’s scapula, 5.6 inches long and 2.8 inches wide on the edge. There is an adze in the Museum from the Mackenzie River region with a steel blade of precisely the same pattern. That adzes of this pattern sometimes had stone blades is probable. No. 89840 [1317], is a clumsily made commercial tool of this type, with a small head of greenish slate. It has an unusually straight haft, which is disproportionately long and thick.

All these adzes, ancient and modern, are hafted upon essentially the same pattern. The short curved haft, the shape of which is sufficiently well indicated by the figures, seems to have been generally made of whale’s rib or reindeer antler, both of which have a natural curve suited 172 to the shape of the haft. A “branch” of a reindeer’s antler is particularly well suited for the haft of a small adze. Not only does it have naturally the proper dimensions and a suitable curve, but it is very easy, by cutting out a small segment of the “beam” where the “branch” starts from it, to make a flange of a convenient shape for fitting to the head. Antler is besides easily obtained, not only when the deer is killed for food, but by picking up shed antlers on the tundra, and is consequently employed for many purposes. The haft usually has a knob at the tip to keep the hand from slipping, and the grip is sometimes roughened with cross cuts or wound with thong. There are usually as many holes for the lashing as there are eyes in the head, though there are two holes when the head has only one large eye. On the bone heads, the surfaces to which the haft is applied and the channels for the lashings are roughened with cross cuts to prevent slipping. The lashing always follows the same general plan, though no two adzes are lashed exactly alike. The plan may be summarized as follows: One end of the thong makes a turn through one of the holes in the haft, and around or through the head. This turn is then secured, usually by passing the long end through a slit in the short end and hauling this loop taut, sometimes by knotting the short end to the long part, or by catching the short end down under the next turn. The long part then makes several turns round or through the head and through the haft, sometimes also crossing around the latter, and the whole is then finished off by wrapping the end two or three times around the turns on one side and tucking it neatly underneath. This is very like the method of lashing on the heads of the mauls already described, but the mauls have only one hole in the haft, and there are rarely any turns around the latter.

Jade adz blades, like those already described, have been brought by Mr. Nelson from Kotzebue Sound, the Diomedes, St. Michaels, etc., and one came from as far south as the Kuskoquim River.

Chisels.—

We collected a number of small short handled chisels, resembling the implements called “trinket makers,” of which there are so many in the National Museum. We never happened to see them in actual use, but were informed that they were especially designed for working 173 on reindeer antler. Of the eight specimens collected No. 89302 [884], Fig. 143, has been selected as a type of the antler chisel (kĭ´ñnusa). The blade is of steel, and the haft is of reindeer antler, in two longitudinal sections, put together at right angles to the plane of the blade, held together by a stout round bone treenail 2½ inches from the butt. The square tip of the blade is beveled on both faces to a rough cutting edge. Fig. 144 (No. 89301) [1000] has a small blade with an oblique tip not beveled to an edge, and a haft of walrus ivory yellowed from age, and ornamented with rows of rings, each with a dot in the center, all incised and colored with red ocher. The two parts of the haft are fastened together by a stout wooden treenail and a stitch of whalebone.

The rest of the steel-bladed chisels, four in number, are all of about the same size and hafted with antler. The blades are somewhat irregular in shape, but all have square or oblique tips and no sharp edge. Three of them have the sections of the haft put together as described, and fastened by a treenail and a whipping of seal twine or sinew braid at the tip. One has the two sections put together in the plane of the blade and fastened with a large copper rivet, which also passes through the butt of the blade, and three stout iron ones. The hafts of all these tools show signs of much handling. The remaining two specimens have blades of black flint. No. 89637 [1207], has a haft of walrus ivory, of the usual pattern, fastened together by a bone treenail and two stitches, one of sinew braid and one of seal thong. The lashing of seal twine near the tip serves to mend a crack. The haft is old and rusty about the slot into which the blade is fitted, showing that it originally had an iron blade. The flint blade was probably put in to make it seem ancient, as there was a special demand for prehistoric articles. No. 89653 [1290], Fig. 145, is nothing but a fanciful tool made to meet this demand. The haft is of light-brown mountain sheep horn, and the blade of black flint. Such flint-bladed tools may have been used formerly, but there is no proof that they were.

Whalebone shaves.—

There is in use at Point Barrow, and apparently not elsewhere among the Eskimo, a special tool for shaving whalebone, a substance which is very much used in the form of long, thin strips for fastening together boat timbers, whipping spear shafts, etc. The 174 thin, long shavings which curl up like “curled hair,” are carefully saved and used for the padding between stocking and boot. Whalebone is also sometimes shaved for this special purpose. The tool is essentially a little spokeshave about 4 inches long, which is held by the index and second finger of the right hand, one on each handle, with the thumb pressed against one end, and is drawn toward the workman. The collection contains three specimens of the ordinary form (sávigɐ), represented by No. 89306 [885] (figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. III, Fig. 6). This has a steel blade and a haft of walrus ivory. The upper face of the haft is convex and the under flat, and the blade, which is beveled only on the upper face, is set at a slight inclination to the flat face of the haft. The edge of the blade projects 0.2 inch from the haft above and 0.3 below. The hole at one end of the haft is for a lanyard to hang it up by. The other two are of essentially the same pattern, but have hafts of reindeer antler.

The collection also contains six tools of this description, with stone blades, but they are all new and very carelessly made, with hafts of coarse-grained bone. The shape of the tools is shown in Fig. 146, No. 89649 [1213], from Utkiavwĭñ, which has a rough blade of soft, light greenish slate. The other five have blades of black or gray flint, roughly flaked. All these blades are glued in with oil dregs. No. 89652 [1225] is like the others in shape, but more neatly made, and is peculiar in having a blade of hard, compact bone. This is inserted by sawing a deep, narrow slit along one side of the haft from end to end. The blade is wedged into the middle of the slit, the ends of which are neatly filled in with slips of the same material as the haft. This was the only tool of the kind seen. It is very probable that shaves of stone were formerly used, though we obtained no genuine specimens. The use of oblong chips of flint for this purpose would naturally suggest itself to a savage, and the convenience of fitting these flakes into a little haft would soon occur to him. No. 89616 [1176] is such an oblong flint, flaked to an edge on one face, which is evidently old, and which was said to have been used for shaving whalebone. The material is black flint. Whalebone is often shaved nowadays with a common knife. The slab of bone is laid upon the thigh and the edge of the knife pressed firmly against it, with the blade perpendicular to the surface of the slab, which is drawn rapidly under it.

Saws.—

If the Eskimo had not already invented the saw before they became acquainted with the whites they readily adopted the tool even when they had scanty materials for making it. Crantz285 speaks of “a little lock saw” as one of a Greenlander’s regular tools in his time, and Egede286 mentions handsaws as a regular article of trade. Capt. Parry287 175 found the natives of Iglulik, in 1821-1823, using a saw made of a notched piece of iron. On our asking Nĭkawa´alu, one day, what they had for tools before they got iron he said that they had drills made of seal bones and saws made of the shoulder blade of the reindeer. Some time afterwards he brought over a model of such a saw, which he said was exactly like those formerly used. Fig. 147, No. 89476 [1206], represents this specimen. It is made by cutting off the anterior edge of a reindeer’s scapula in a straight line parallel to the posterior edge and cutting fine saw teeth on this thin edge. The spine is also cut off nearly flat. This makes a tool very much like a carpenter’s backsaw, the narrow part of the scapula forming a convenient handle.

Fig. 148, No. 56559 [15], shows how other implements were utilized before it was easy to obtain saws in plenty. It is a common case knife stamped on the blade, “Wilson, Hawksworth, ——n & Co., Sheffield,” which perhaps came from the Plover, with saw teeth cut on the edge. It was picked up at the Utkiavwĭñ cemetery, where it had been exposed with a corpse. Saws are now a regular article of trade, and most of the natives are provided with them of various styles and makes. The name for saw is uluă´ktun.

Drills and borers.—

The use of the bow drill appears to be universal among the Eskimo. Those at present employed at Point Barrow do not differ from the large series collected at the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers by MacFarlane. The drill is a slender rod of steel worked to a drill point and imbedded in a stout wooden shaft, which is tapered to a rounded tip. This fits into a stone socket imbedded in a wooden block, which is held between the teeth, so that the point of the drill can be pressed down against the object to be drilled by the head, leaving both hands free to work the short bow, which has a loose string of thong long enough to make one turn round the shaft. The collection contains ten of these modern steel or iron drills, fifteen bows, and seven mouthpieces. No. 89502 [853], figured in Point Barrow Rept., Ethnology, Pl. II, Fig. 1, has been selected as a typical drill (niă´ktun). The drill is a cylindrical rod of steel beaten out into a small lanceolate point, which is filed sharp on the edges. The shaft is made of hard wood. The remaining drills are of essentially the same pattern, varying in total length from about 11 inches to 16½.

Fig. 149, No. 89499 [968] shows a somewhat unusual shape of shaft. The lashings round the large end are to keep it from splitting any more 176 than it has done already. The drill is of iron and the shaft of spruce, which was once painted with red ocher.

No. 89497 [819] (Fig. 150) has a ferrule of coarse-grained bone neatly pegged on with two small pegs of the same material. This is unusual with steel drills. The shaft is of spruce and of the same shape as in the preceding specimen. No. 89595 [875] (Fig. 151) is figured to show the way in which the shaft has been mended. A wedge-shaped piece 3½ inches long and 0.3 to 0.4 inch wide has been split out of the large end and replaced by a fresh piece of wood neatly fitted in and secured by two tight whippings of sinew braid, each in a deep groove.

No. 89515 [861], figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. II, Fig. 2, is a typical bow (pizĭksuá) for use with these drills. It is of walrus ivory, 16 inches long and oval in section. Through each end is drilled a transverse hole. A string of seal thong 21 inches long is looped into one of these holes by passing one end of the thong through the hole, cutting a slit in it, and passing the other end through this. The other end is passed through the other hole and knotted at the tip.

These bows vary slightly in dimensions, but are not less than a foot or more than 16 inches long, and are almost always of walrus ivory. No. 89508 [956] (Fig. 152), is an old and rudely made bow of whalebone, which is more strongly arched than usual, and has the string attached to notches at the ends instead of into holes. This was said to belong with an old bone drill, No. 89498 [956]. Both came from Nuwŭk. These bows are often highly ornamented both by carving and with incised patterns colored with red ocher or soot. The following figures are introduced to show some of the different styles of ornamentation.

Fig. 153a, No. 56506 [298] is unusually broad and flat and was probably made for a handle to a tool bag. Such handles, however, appear 177 to be also used for drill bows. The tips of this bow represent seals heads, and have good sized sky-blue glass beads inserted for eyes. The rest of the ornamentation is incised and blackened. Fig. 153b, No. 89421 [1260], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a similar bow, which has incised on the back figures of men and animals, which, perhaps, tell of some real event. Mr. L. M. Turner informs me that the natives of Norton Sound keep a regular record of hunting and other events engraved in this way upon their drill bows, and that no one ever ventures to falsify these records. We did not learn definitely that such was the rule at Point Barrow, but we have one bag-handle marked with whales, which we were told indicated the number killed by the owner. Fig. 153c, No. 89425 [1732], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a similar bow, ornamented on the back with simply an incised border colored red. On the other side are the figures of ten bearded seals, cross-hatched and blackened. These are perhaps a “score.” Fig. 153d, No. 89509 [914], from Nuwŭk, is a bow of the common pattern, but ornamented by carving the back into a toothed keel.

Fig. 153e, No. 89510 [961], from Utkiavwĭñ, is ornamented on one side only with an incised pattern, which is blackened. Fig. 153f, No. 89511 [961], also from Utkiavwĭñ, has, in addition to the incised and blackened pattern, a small transparent sky-blue glass bead inlaid in the middle of the back. Fig. 153g, No. 89512 [836], from the same place, is a flat bow with the edges carved into scallops. The incised line along the middle of the back is colored with red ocher. The string is made of sinew braid.

Fig. 154, No. 89777 [1004b], which belongs in the “kit” of Ilû´bw’ga, the Nunatañmiun, previously mentioned, is interesting from having been lengthened 3¼ inches by riveting on a piece of reindeer antler at one end. The two pieces are neatly joined in a “lap splice” about 2 inches long and fastened with three iron rivets. The owner appears to have concluded that his drill bow was too short when he was at home, in the interior, where he could obtain no walrus ivory. The incised pattern on the back is colored with red ocher.

The mouthpiece (kĭ´ñmia) consists of a block of hard stone (rarely iron), in which is hollowed out a round cup-like socket, large enough to receive the tip of the drill shaft, imbedded in a block of wood of a suitable size to hold between the teeth. This block often has curved flanges 178 on each side, which rest against the cheeks. Such mouthpieces are common all along the coast from the Anderson River to Norton Sound, as is shown by the Museum collection. No. 89500 [800], figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. II, Fig. 3, is a type of the flanged mouthpiece. The block is of pine, carved into a thick, broad arch, with a large block on the inside. Into the top of the arch is inlaid a piece of gray porphyry with black spots, which is slightly convex on the surface, so as to project a little above the surface of the wood. In the middle of the stone is a cup-shaped cavity one-half inch in diameter and of nearly the same depth. This is a rather large mouthpiece, being 6 inches across from one end of the arch to the other.

There are two other specimens of the same pattern, both rather smaller. No. 89503 [891], Fig. 150, from Nuwŭk, has the stone of black and white syenite. This specimen is very old and dirty, and worn through to the stone on one side, where the teeth have come against it. No. 89787 [1004c], Fig. 155, is almost exactly the same shape as the type, but has 179 for a socket a piece of iron 1.1 inches square, hollowed out as usual. The outside of the wood has been painted with red ocher, but this is mostly worn off. This mouthpiece belonged to Ilû´bw’ga.

Fig. 156, No. 89505 [892], from Utkiavwĭñ, represents the pattern which is perhaps rather commoner than the preceding. The wood, which holds the socket of black and white syenite, is simply an elliptical block of spruce. The remaining three specimens are of the same pattern and of the same material as the last, except No. 89507 [908], from Nuwŭk, in which the wood is oak. As it appears very old, this wood may have come from the Plover.

When not in use, the point of the drill is sometimes protected with a sheath. One such sheath was obtained, No. 89447 [1112], figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. II, Fig. 1. It is of walrus ivory, 3-6 inches long. The end of a piece of thong is passed through the eye and the other part fastened round the open end with a marline-hitch, catching down the end. This leaves a lanyard 9¼ inches long, which is hitched or knotted round the shaft of the drill when the sheath is fitted over the point.

The drills above described are used for perforating all sorts of material, wood, bone, ivory, metal, etc., and are almost the only boring implements used, even awls being unusual. Before the introduction of iron, the point was made of one of the small bones from a seal’s leg. We obtained four specimens of these bone drills, of which two, at least, appear to be genuine. No. 89498 [956], Fig. 157, is one of these, from Nuwŭk. The shaft is of the ordinary pattern and made of some hard wood, but the point is a roughly cylindrical rod of bone, expanding at the point, where it is convex on one face and concave on the other and beveled on both faces into two cutting edges, which meet in an acute angle. The larger end of the shaft has been split and mended by whipping it for about three-quarters of an inch with sinew braid. No. 89518 [1174], is apparently also genuine, and is like the preceding, but beveled only on the concave face of the point, which is rather obtuse. No. 89519 [1258] was made for the market. It has a rude shaft of whale’s bone, but a carefully made bone point of precisely the pattern of the modern iron ones. No. 89520 [1182] has no shaft, and appears to be an old unfinished drill fitted into a carelessly made bone ferrule.

The drill at the present day is always worked with a bow, which allows one hand to be used for steadying the piece of work. We were informed, however, that formerly a cord was sometimes used without the bow, but furnished with a transverse handle at each end.

We collected six little handles of ivory, carved into some ornamental shape, each with an eye in the middle to which a thong could be attached. All were old, and we never saw them in use. The first two were collected at an early period of our acquaintance with these people, and from our imperfect knowledge of the language we got the impression that they were handles to be attached to a harpoon line.

We were not long, however in finding out that the harpoon has no such appendage, and when the other four came in a year later, at a time when the press of other work prevented careful inquiry into their use, we supposed that they were meant for handles to the lines used for dragging dead seals, as they somewhat resemble such an implement. On our return home, when I had opportunities for making a careful study of the collection, I found that none of the drag lines, either in our own collection or in those of the Museum, had handles of this description. On the other hand, I found many similar implements in Mr. Nelson’s collection labeled “drill-cord handles,” and finally one pair (No. 36319, from Kashunuk, near Cape Romanzoff), still attached to the drill cord. These handles are almost identical in shape with No. 89458 [835], from Utkiavwĭñ. This leaves no doubt in my mind that the so-called “drag-line handles” in our collection are nothing more than handles for drill cords, now wholly obsolete and supplanted by the bows already described. I have figured all six of these handles to show the different patterns of ornamentation. They are all made of walrus ivory, and are all “odd” handles, no two being mates. Fig. 158a (No. 56526) [86], is 5.2 inches long, and light blue beads are inserted for eyes in the seal’s heads. The eye for the drill cord is made by boring two median holes at the middle of one side so that they meet under the surface and make a longitudinal channel.

Fig. 158b (No. 56527 [23] from Utkiavwĭñ), is 4.3 inches long, and is very accurately carved into the image of a man’s right leg and foot, dressed in a striped deerskin boot. The end opposite to the foot is the 181 head of some animal, perhaps a wolf, with bits of dark wood inlaid for eyes. The eye is a simple large transverse hole through the thigh.

Fig. 158c (No. 89455 [929] from Nuwŭk), is 5.9 inches long. The eye is drilled lengthwise through a large lump projecting from the middle of one side. Small blue beads are inlaid for the eyes, and one to indicate the male genital opening.

Fig. 158d (No. 89456 [930] from Nuwŭk) is like No. 56527 [23], but represents the left foot and is not so artistically carved. It is 3.7 inches long.

Fig. 158e (No. 89457 [925] from Nuwŭk) is 4.7 inches long, and resembles No. 89455 [929], but has instead of the seal’s tail and flippers a large ovoid knob ornamented with incised and blackened rings. The “eye” is bored transversely.

Fig. 158f (No. 89458 [835] from Utkiavwĭñ) differs from No. 89455 [925] in having a transverse eye, and being less artistically carved. Bits of lead are inlaid for the eyes. It is 4.4 inches long. The name of this implement is kû´ñ-i.

We obtained six specimens of an old flint tool, consisting of a rather long thick blade mounted in a straight haft about 10 inches long, of which we had some difficulty in ascertaining the use. We were at last able to be quite sure that they were intended for drilling, or rather reaming out, the large cavity in the base of the ivory head of a whale harpoon, which fits upon the conical tip of the fore-shaft. The shape of the blade is well fitted for this purpose. It is not unlikely that such tools, worked as these are, by hand, preceded the bone drills for boring all sorts of objects, and that the habit of using them for making the whale harpoon was kept up from the same conservatism founded on superstition which surrounds the whole whale fishery. (See under “Whale fishing,” where the subject will be more fully discussed.) No. 89626 [870], figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. II, Fig. 4, is a typical implement of this class (ītaun, i´tûgetsau´). The blade is of black flint, flaked, 2 inches long, imbedded in the end of a haft of spruce, 10.5 inches long. The blade is held in place by whipping the cleft end of the haft with sinew braid.

Two of the other specimens, No. 89627 [937] and No. 89628 [912], are of essentially the same pattern and material, but have rounded hafts. No. 89629 [960] and No. 89630 [1068], Figs. 159a, 159b, have blades of the same pattern, but have hafts fitted for use with the mouthpiece and bow, showing that sometimes, at least in later times, these tools were so used. No. 89625 [1217] (Fig. 160) has no haft, but the blade, which is rather narrow in proportion to its length (2.3 inches by 0.5), is fitted into a short ferrule of antler, with a little dovetail on the edge for attaching it to the haft.

Of awls we saw only one specimen, which, perhaps, ought rather to be considered a little hand drill. This is No. 89308 [1292], Fig. 161, from Utkiavwĭñ. The point is the tip of a common three-cornered file, 182 sharpened down. It is imbedded in a handle of fossil ivory which has turned a light yellowish brown from age. Its total length is 2.8 inches.

Hammers.—

At the present day nearly every man has been able to procure an iron hammer of some kind, which he uses with great handiness. Before the introduction of iron, in addition to the bone and stone mauls above described as bone crushers, unhafted pebbles of convenient shape were also employed. No. 56661 [274] is such a stone. It is an ovoid water-worn pebble of greenish gray quartzite, 3½ inches long. The ends are battered, showing how it had been used. It was brought from one of the rivers in the interior by one of the natives of Utkiavwĭñ.

Files.—

Files of all kinds are eagerly sought after by the natives, who use them with very great skill and patience, doing nearly all their metal work with these tools. For instance, one particularly ingenious native converted his Winchester rifle from a rim fire to a central fire with nothing but a file. To do this he had to make a new firing pin, as the firing pin of the rim-fire gun is too short to reach the head of the cartridge. He accomplished this by accurately cutting off, to the proper length, an old worn-out three-cornered file. He then filed off enough of each edge so that the rod fitted evenly in the cylindrical hole where the firing pin works. The work was done so carefully that the new firing pin worked perfectly, and he had only to complete the job by cutting off his central fire cartridge shells to a proper length to fit the chamber of the gun.

They have almost no knowledge of working metal with the aid of heat, as is natural from the scarcity of fuel. I have, however, seen them roughly temper small articles, such as fire steels, etc., by heating them in the fire and quenching them in cold 183 water. One native very neatly mended a musket barrel which had been cracked by firing too heavy a charge. He cut a section from another old barrel of somewhat larger caliber, which he heated until it had expanded enough to slip down over the crack, and then allowed it to shrink on.

Whetstones (ipiksaun).—

Knives are generally sharpened with a file, cutting a bevel, as before mentioned, on one face of the blade only. To “set” or “turn” the edge they use pieces of steel of various shapes, generally with a hole drilled in them so that they can be hung to the breeches belt by a lanyard. One man, for instance, used about half of a razor blade for this purpose, and another a small horseshoe magnet. In former times they employed a very elegant implement, consisting of a slender rod of jade from 3 to 7 inches long, with a lanyard attached to an eye in the larger end. These were sometimes made by cutting a piece from one of the old jade adzes in the manner already described. There are a few of these whetstones still in use at the present day, and they are very highly prized. We succeeded in obtaining nine specimens, of which No. 89618 [801], Fig. 162a, has been selected as the type. It is of hard black stone, probably jade, 6.3 inches long. Through the wider end is drilled a large eye, into which is neatly spliced one end of a stout flat braid of sinew 4¾ inches long.

The remaining whetstones are of very much the same pattern. I have figured five of them, to show the slight variations. Fig. 162b (No. 56662 [393], from Utkiavwĭñ) is of light grayish green jade, smoothly polished and 4.1 inches long. It is chamfered only on the small end at right angles to the breadth, and has the eye prolonged into ornamental grooves on the two opposite faces. The long lanyard is of common sinew braid. No. 56663 [229] (from the same village) is of olive green, slightly translucent jade, 6.8 inches long, and elliptical in section, also chamfered only at the small end. The lanyard, which is a strip of seal thong 9 inches long, is secured in the eye, as described before, with two slits, one in the standing part through which the end is passed and the other in the end with the standing part passed through it. No. 89617 [1262] (from Sidaru) is of olive green, translucent jade, 6.1 inches long, and shaped like the type, but chamfered only at the small end. The lanyard of seal thong is secured in the eye by a large round knot in one end. No. 89619 [837] (from Utkiavwĭñ) is of bright green, translucent jade, 5.1 inches long, and unusually thick, its greatest diameter being 0.6 inch. The tip is gradually worked off to an oblique edge, and it has ornamental grooves running through the eye like No. 56662 [393].

No. 89620 [865] (from Nuwŭk) is shaped very much like the type, but has the tip tapered off almost to a point. It is of olive green, slightly translucent jade and is 7 inches long. The lanyard is a piece of sinew 185 braid with the ends knotted together and the bight looped into the eye. A large sky-blue glass bead is slipped on over both parts of the lanyard and pushed up close to the loop. Fig. 163a (No. 89621 [757], from Utkiavwĭñ) is very short and broad (3.6 inches by 0.6), is chamfered at both ends, and has the ornamental grooves at the eye. The material is a hard, opaque, bluish gray stone, veined with black.

A whetstone of similar material was brought by Lieut. Stoney from Kotzebue Sound. The long lanyard is of sinew braid. Fig. 163b (No. 89622 [951], also from Utkiavwĭñ) is a very small, slender whetstone, 3.3 inches long, of dark olive green semitranslucent jade, polished. The tip is not chamfered, but tapers to a blunt point. It has the ornamental grooves at the eye. These are undoubtedly the “stones for making . . . whetstones, or these ready-made” referred to by Dr. Simpson (Op. cit., p. 266) as brought by the Nunatañmiun from the people of the “Ko-wak River.” A few such whetstones have been collected on other parts of the northwest coast as far south as the northern shore of Norton Sound. The broken whetstone mentioned above is of a beautiful bluish green translucent jade. Bits of stone are also used for whetstones, such as No. 89786 [1004f], which belong in Ilû´bw’ga’s tool bag. They are two rough, oblong bits of hard dark gray slate, apparently split off a flat, weathered surface.

Tool boxes and bags.—

We collected six specimens of a peculiarly shaped long, narrow box, carved from a single block of wood, which we were informed were formerly used for holding tools. They have gone out of fashion at the present day, and there are but few of them left. No. 89860 [1152], Fig. 164a, represents the typical shape of this box. It is carved from a single block of pine. The cover is slightly hollowed on the under side and is held on by two double rings of twine (one of seal twine and the other of sinew braid), large enough to slip over the 186 end. Each ring is made by doubling a long piece of twine so that the two parts are equal, passing one end through the bight and knotting it to the other. The box and cover seem to have been painted inside and out with red ocher. On the outside this is mostly faded and worn off and covered with dirt, but inside it has turned a dark brown. Fig. 164b (No. 89858 [1319], from Utkiavwĭñ), is a similar box, 21.1 inches long. The cover is held on by a string passing over little hooked ivory studs close to the edge of the box. There were originally five of these studs, two at each end and one in the middle of one side. The string started from one of these studs at the pointed end. This stud is broken and the string fastened into a hole close to it. To fasten on the cover the string was carried over and hooked under the opposite stud, then crossed over the cover to the middle stud, then across to the end stud on the other side, and the loop on the end hooked onto the last stud.

No. 89859 [1318] is a smaller box (19 inches long) of the same pattern, with only four studs. The cover has three large blue glass beads, like those used for labrets, inlaid in a line along the middle. No. 89858 [1144], from Utkiavwĭñ, is the shape of the type, but has a thicker cover and six stud holes in the margin. No. 89861 [1151], Fig. 165a, from the same place, is shaped something like a violin case, 22.2 inches long. The cover has been split and “stitched” together with whalebone, and a crack in the broader end of the box has been neatly mended by pegging on, with nine little wooden treenails, a strap of reindeer antler of the same width as the edge and following the curve of its outline. There are four studs, two at each end. The string is made fast to one at the smaller end, carried over to the opposite one, then crossed to the opposite stud at the other end and back under the last one, a bight of the end being tucked under the string between the two last-mentioned studs. The string is made of sinew braid, rope-yarns, and a long piece of seal thong. It was probably at first all of sinew 187 braid, and, gradually growing too short by being broken and knotted together again, was lengthened out with whatever came to hand.

No. 89862 [1593], Fig. 165b, is a large box, of a very peculiar shape, best understood from the figure. The outside is much weathered, but appears to have been roughly carved, and the excavation of the box and cover is very rudely done, perhaps with a stone tool. A hole in the larger end is mended by a patch of wood chamfered off to fit the hole and sewed on round the edges with “over-and-over” stitches of whalebone. The string is arranged in permanent loops, under which the cover can be slipped off and on.

The arrangement, which is rather complicated, is as follows: On one side of the box, one-half inch from the edge and about 7 inches from each end, are two pairs of holes, one-half inch apart. Into each pair is fastened, by means of knots on the inside, a loop of very stout sinew braid, 3 inches long, and similar loops of seal thong, 5 inches long, are fastened into corresponding pairs of holes on the other side. A piece of seal thong is fastened with a becket-hitch into the loop of seal thong at the small end of the box, passes through both braid loops on the other side, and is carried over through the loop of seal thong at the large end. The end of the thong is knotted into one of the pairs of holes left by the breaking away of a stitch at the edge of the wooden patch above mentioned.

All these boxes are very old and were painted inside with red ocher, which has turned dark brown from age. Tools are nowadays kept in a large oblong, flat satchel, ĭkqûxbwĭñ, which has an arched handle of ivory or bone stretched lengthwise across the open mouth. These bags are always made of skin with the hair out, and the skins of wolverines’ heads are the most desired for this purpose. The collection contains four such bags. No. 89794 [1018], Fig. 166, is the type of these bags. The bottom of the bag is a piece of short-haired brown deerskin, with 188 the hair out, pieced across the middle. The sides and ends are made of the skins of four wolverine heads, without the lower jaw, cut off at the nape and spread out and sewed together side by side with the hair outward and noses up. One head comes on each end of the bag and one on each side, and the spaces between the noses are filled out with gussets of deerskin and wolverine skin. A narrow strip of the latter is sewed round the mouth of the bag. The handle is of walrus ivory, 14½ inches long and about one-half inch square. There is a vertical hole through it one-half inch from each end, and at one end also a transverse hole between this and the tip. One end of the thong which fastens the handle to the bag is drawn through this hole and cut off close to the surface. The other end is brought over the handle and down through the vertical hole and made fast with two half-hitches into a hole through the septum of the nose of the head at one end of the bag. The other end of the handle is fastened to the opposite nose in the same way, but the thong is secured in the hole by a simple knot in the end above. On one side of the handle is an unfinished incised pattern.

Fig. 167, No. 89776 [1004], is a similar bag, made of four wolverine heads with the lower jaws attached. The bottom is of stout leather without hair. The mouth is tied up by a bit of thong passed through the nostrils of the two side heads so that it can spread open only about 1¾ inches. The handle is broad and flat, made of walrus ivory, and ornamented with an incised border on top. One end is broken and pieced out with reindeer antler secured by a clumsy “fishing” of seal twine, which is passed through holes in the two parts. The pieces seem to have been riveted together as in the drill bow, No. 89777 [1004b] (Fig. 154), which belongs to this bag. There is a rivet still sticking in the antler. It is possible that the ivory may have broken in the process of riveting the two together. The handle has two vertical holes at each end for the thong, by which it is fastened to the end noses, both in the 189 median line and joined by a short channel on top of the handle. This bag was the property of the Nunatañmiun Ilûbw’ga, so frequently mentioned, and was purchased with all its contents.

These are two bow drills, one large and one small (Figs. 168a and 168b, Nos. 89778 and 89779 [1004a]); a drill bow (Fig. 154, No. 89777 [1004b]); a mouthpiece (Fig. 155, No. 89787 [1004c]); a large crooked knife with a sheath (Fig. 114, No. 89780 [1004d]); a flint flaker (No. 89752 [1004e]); a comb for deerskins (Fig. 169, No. 89781 [1005]); a haircomb made of antler (No. 89785 [1006]); a fishhook (No. 89783 [1007]); and a small seal harpoon head (No. 89784 [1008]).

No. 89796 [1118], from Nuwŭk, is of rather unusual materials. The bottom is of brown reindeer skin and the sides and ends are the heads of two wolves and a red fox. The wolf heads meet on one side, and the fox head is put in between them on the other. The fox head has no lower jaw, and one wolf head has only the left half of the lower jaw. The vacant spaces around the mouth are filled by triangular gussets of wolf and reindeer skin. The eyeholes are patched on the inside with deerskin. It has no handle. No. 89795 [1309], the remaining bag, is of the usual pattern, but carelessly made of small pieces of deerskin, with a handle of coarse-grained whale’s bone. It was probably made for sale.

I have figured four handles of such bags to show the style of ornamentation. Fig. 170a(No. 89420 [1111], from Nuwŭk) has incised figures of men and reindeer on the back, once colored with ocher, of which traces can still be seen. This is perhaps a hunting score. (See remarks on this subject under “Bow drills.”) Fig. 170b (No. 89423 [996], from Utkiavwĭñ) is a very elaborate handle, with scalloped edges and fluted back, which is also ornamented with an incised pattern colored with red ocher. The other side is covered with series of the incised circles, each with a dot in the center, so frequently mentioned. Fig. 170c (No. 89424 [890], from Nuwŭk) has on the under side two rows of figures representing the flukes and “smalls” of whales. This is the specimen already mentioned, which the natives called an actual score. The series of twenty-six tails were said to be the record of old Yûksĭ´ña (“Erksinra” of Dr. Simpson), the so-called “chief” at Nuwŭk. All the above handles are of walrus ivory, and have been in actual use. Fig. 170c (No. 56513 190 [43], from Utkiavwĭñ) is a handle of different material (reindeer antler) and of somewhat different pattern. One end is neatly carved into an exceedingly accurate image of the head of a reindeer which has shed its antlers, with small blue beads inlaid for the eyes. The back of the handle is ornamented with an incised pattern colored with red ocher. We were told that such handles were sometimes fitted to the wooden buckets, but I never saw one so used.

No. 89798 [1075], Fig. 171, is a bag of rather unusual pattern, the only one of the kind we saw. The bottom is a single round piece, 9 inches in diameter, of what seems to be split skin of the bearded seal, flesh side out, and the rest of the bag is of white-tanned seal leather. The sides are of five broad pieces (6, 4½, 4, 5½, and 5 inches broad at the bottom, respectively, narrowing to 2½, 1½, 1¼, 2, and 2⅓, respectively, at the top), alternating with five straight strips, respectively 1½, 1, 1⅓, 1¼, and 1½ inches broad. The edges of these strips overlap the edges of the broad pieces, and are neatly stitched with two threads, as on the soles of the waterproof boots. The outer thread, which is caught in the loop of each stitch of the other, is a slender filament of black whale-bone. This produces a sort of embroidery. The neck is stitched to the bag with the same seam, but the hem at the mouth is merely “run” round with sinew. This bag was probably for holding small tools and similar articles.

WEAPONS.

As would naturally be expected from what has been said of the peaceful character of these people, offensive weapons, specially intended for use against men, are exceedingly rare. In case of quarrels between individuals or parties the bows, spears, and knives intended for hunting or general use would be turned against their enemies. Even their rifles, nowadays, are kept much more for hunting than as weapons of offense, and the revolvers of various patterns which many of them have obtained from the ships are chiefly carried when traveling back and forth between the two villages as a protection against a possible bear. We, however, obtained a few weapons which were especially designed for taking human life. One of these was a little club (tĭ´glun) (No. 89492 [1310], Fig. 172, from Utkiavwĭñ) made of the butt end of an old pickax head of whale’s bone, with the point cut down to a blunt end. It is 6.4 inches long and meant to be clenched in the hand like a dagger, and used for striking blows, probably at the temple. The transverse grooves for hafting give a good hold for the fingers. This was the only weapon of the kind seen.

We collected a single specimen of a kind of slung shot, No. 89472 [905] (Fig. 173), made of a roughly ovoid lump of heavy bone, the symphysis of the lower jaw of a walrus, 3⅓ inches long. At the smaller end two large holes are bored in obliquely so as to meet under the surface and form a channel through which is passed a slip of white seal skin about 15 inches long, the ends of which fasten together with two slits, so as to make a loop. This may be compared with the stone balls used by the ancient Aleuts for striking a man on the temple.

The commonest weapon of offense was a broad dagger made of a bone of the polar bear. This was said to be especially meant for killing a “bad man,” possibly for certain specified offenses or perhaps in cases of insanity. Insane persons were sometimes killed in Greenland, and the act was considered “neither decidedly admissible 192 nor altogether unlawful.”288 The use of bears’ bones for these weapons points to some superstitious idea, perhaps having reference to the ferocity of the animal. We collected five specimens of these daggers, of which No. 89484 [767], Fig. 174, has been selected as the type. It is the distal end of the ulna of a polar bear, with the neck and condyles forming the hilt, and the shaft split so as to expose the medullary cavity and cut into a pointed blade. It is very old, blackened, and crumbling on the surface, and is a foot long.

Fig. 175a, No. 89475 [988], from Nuwŭk, is made of a straight splinter from the shaft of one of the long bones, 9¾ inches long. No. 89480 [1141], from Utkiavwĭñ, has a roughly whittled hilt and a somewhat twisted blade, rather narrow, but widened to a sharp lanceolate point. It is 12 inches long. No. 89481 [1175], from the same place, has the roughly shaped hilt whipped with two turns of sinew. No. 89482 [1709], Fig. 175b, also from Utkiavwĭñ, is dirk-shaped, having but one edge and a straight back. The hilt, as before, is roughly sawed from the solid head of the bone. No. 89485 [965], Fig. 176, from Nuwŭk, was also said to be a dagger, but could not have been a very effective weapon. It is of whale’s bone, 5 inches long. It is rather rudely carved, old, and dirty, but the notches on the haft are newly cut.

Dirks or daggers of bear’s bone, like those described, are really rather formidable weapons, as it is easy to give the splinter of bone a very keen point. The Museum contains a bone dagger curiously like these Eskimo weapons, but made of the bone of the grizzly bear, and used by the Indians of the McCloud River, northern California. They believe that the peculiar shape of the point, having a hollow (the medullary cavity) on one face, like the Eskimo daggers, causes the wound to bleed internally.

PROJECTILE WEAPONS.

Firearms.—

When Dease and Simpson first met these people, in 1837, they had no firearms, but the next party of whites who came in contact with them (Pullen and Hooper, in 1849) found the “chief” in possession of an old shaky musket of English make, with the name “Barnett” on the lock.289 Hooper believed this to be the gun lost by Sir John Franklin’s party in 1826.290 This gun was, however, often seen by the people of the Plover (in fact, Capt. Maguire kept it on board of the Plover for some time291), and was found to have on the lock, besides the name “Barnett,” also the date, “1843,” so that of course it was not lost in 1826. Armstrong292 also mentions seeing this gun, which, the natives told him, they had procured “from the other tribes to the southward.” In the summer of 1853 they began to purchase guns and ammunition from the eastern natives. Yûksĭña and two other men each bought a gun this year.293

As the whalers began to go to Point Barrow in 1854, the opportunity for obtaining firearms has been afforded the natives every year since then, so that they are now well supplied with guns, chiefly of American manufacture. That all their firearms have not been obtained from this source is probable from the fact they have still in their possession a number of smoothbore percussion guns, double and single barreled, of Russian manufacture. They are all stamped in Russian with the name of Tula, a town on the Oopa, 105 miles south of Moscow, which has received the name of the “Sheffield and Birmingham of Russia,” from its vast manufactory of arms, established by Peter the Great. These guns must have come from the “Nunatañmiun,” who obtained them either from the Siberian traders or from the Russians at Norton Sound through the Malemiut. Both smoothbore and rifled guns are in general use. The smoothbores are of all sorts and descriptions, from an old flintlock musket to more or less valuable single and double percussion fowling-pieces. Three of the natives now (1883) have cheap double breechloaders and one a single breechloader (made by John P. Lovell, of Boston). Guns in general are called “cupûñ,” an onomatopœic word in general use in western America, but many of the different kinds have special names. For instance, a double gun is called madro´lĭñ (from madro, two). The rifles are also of many different patterns. The kind preferred by the natives is the ordinary Winchester brass-mounted 15-shot repeater, which the whalers and traders purchase cheaply at wholesale. This is 194 called akĭmiɐlĭñ (“that which has fifteen,” sc., shots). The whalers are also in the habit of buying up all sorts of cheap or second-hand guns for the Arctic trade, so that many other kinds of guns are also common. Of breechloaders, we saw the Sharpe’s rifle, savĭgro´lĭñ (from a fancied resemblance between the crooked lever of this gun and the crooked knife, savigro´n); other patterns of Winchester; the Spencer repeater, kai´psualĭñ (from kaipsĭ, cartridge); the peculiar Sharps-Hankins, once used in the U.S. Navy, and which was the favorite weapon of the rebel Boers in South Africa; the Peabody-Martini, made in America for the Turkish Government, marked on the rear sight with Turkish figures, and, exposed with a corpse at the cemetery, one English Snider. The regulation Springfield rifles belonging to the post, which were often loaned to the natives for the purpose of hunting, were called mûkpara´lĭñ (from mûkpara´, book, referring to the breech action, which opens like a book).

They formerly had very few muzzle-loading rifles, but of late years, since the law against trading arms to the natives has been construed to refer solely to breech-loading rifles, the whalers have sold them yäger rifles, of the old U.S. Army pattern, Enfield rifles, ship’s muskets with the Tower mark on them, and a sort of bogus rifle made especially for trade, in imitation of the old-fashioned Kentucky rifle, but with grooves extending only a short distance from the muzzle. They of course depend on the ships for their supplies of ammunition, though the Nunatañmiun sometimes bring a few cartridges smuggled across from Siberia. They naturally are most desirous to procure cartridges for the rim-fire Winchester guns, as these are not intended to be used more than once. They have, however, invented a method of priming these rim-fire shells so that they can be reloaded. A common “G. D.” percussion cap is neatly fitted into the rim of the shell by cutting the sides into strips which are folded into slits in the shell, a little hole being drilled under the center of the cap to allow the flash to reach the powder. This is a very laborious process, but enables the natives to use a rifle which would otherwise be useless. Such cartridges reloaded with powder and home-made bullets—they have many bullet molds and know how to use them—are tolerably effective. Great care must be taken to insert the cartridge right side up, so that the cap shall be struck by the firing pin, which interferes with using the gun as a repeater.

They are very careless with their rifles, allowing them to get rusty, and otherwise misusing them, especially by firing small shot from them in the duck-shooting season. As a rule they are very fair shots with the rifle, but extremely lavish of ammunition when they have a supply. The only economy is shown in reloading cartridges and in loading their shotguns, into which they seldom put a sufficient charge. In spite of this some of them shoot very well with the shotgun, though many of them show great stupidity in judging distance, firing light 195 charges of shot at short rifle range (100 to 200 yards). Though they mold their own bullets, I have never known any of them to attempt making shot or slugs. This, which they call kăkrúra (little bullets, from kă´kru, originally meaning arrow and now used for bullet as well) is always obtained from the whites. The gun is habitually carried in a case or holster long enough to cover the whole gun, made of sealskin, either black-tanned or with the hair on the outside. This, like the bow case, from which it is evidently copied, is slung across the back by a thong passing round the shoulders and across the chest. This is the method universally practiced for carrying burdens of all sorts. The butt of the gun is on the right side, so that it can be easily slipped out of the holster under the right arm without unslinging it. Revolvers are also carried slung in holsters on the back in the same way. Ammunition is carried in a pouch slung over the shoulder. They are careless in handling firearms and ammunition. We knew two men who shot off the tip of the forefinger while filing cartridges which had failed to explode in the gun.

Whaling guns.—

In addition to the kinds of firearms for land hunting above described a number of the natives have procured from the whalemen, either by purchase or from wrecks, whaling guns, such as are used by the American whalers, in place of the steel lance for dispatching the whale after it is harpooned. These are of various patterns, both muzzle and breech loading, and they are able to procure nearly every year a small supply of the explosive lances to be shot from them. They use them as the white men do for killing harpooned whales, and also, when the leads of open water are narrow, for shooting them as they pass close to the edge of the ice.

Bows (pízĭ´ksĕ).—

In former times the bow was the only projectile weapon which these people possessed that could be used at a longer range than the “dart” of a harpoon. It was accordingly used for hunting the bear, the wolf, and the reindeer, for shooting birds, and in case of necessity, for warfare. It is worthy of note, in this connection, as showing that the use of the bow for fighting was only a secondary consideration, that none of their arrows are regular “war arrows” like those made by the Sioux or other Indians; that is, arrows to be shot with the breadth of the head horizontal, so as to pass between the horizontal ribs of a man. Firearms have now almost completely superseded the bow for actual work, though a few men, too poor to obtain guns, still use them.

Every boy has a bow for a plaything, with which he shoots small birds and practices at marks. Very few boys, however, show any great skill with it. We never had an opportunity of seeing an adult shoot with the bow and arrow; but they have not yet lost the art of bow-making. The newest boys’ bows are as skillfully and ingeniously constructed as the old bows, but are of course smaller and weaker. The bow in use among these people was the universal sinew-backed bow of 196 the Eskimo carried to its highest degree of efficiency.294 It was of what I have called the “Arctic type,” namely, a rather short bow of spruce, from 43 to 52 inches in length, nearly elliptical in section, but flatter on the back than on the belly, and slightly narrowed and thickened at the handle. The greatest breadth was usually about 1¼ inches and the thickness at the handle about three-fourths of an inch. The ends were often bent up as in the Tatar bow, and were sometimes separate pieces mortised on. Strength and elasticity was given to the brittle spruce by applying a number of strands of sinew to the back of the bow in such a way that drawing the bowstring stretched all these elastic cords, thus adding their elasticity to that of the wood. This backing was always a continuous piece of a three-ply braid of sinew, about the size of stout pack thread, and on a large bow often 40 or 50 yards long. It began, as on all Eskimo bows which I have been able to examine (except those from St. Lawrence Island and the mainland of Siberia—my “western type”), with an eye at one end of the cord looped over one nock of the bow, usually the upper. The cord was then laid on the back of the bow in long strands running up and down and round the nocks, as usual on the other types of bow, but after putting on a number of these, began running backward and forward between the bends (if the bow was of the Tatar shape), or between corresponding points on a straight bow, where they were fastened with complicated hitches around the bow in such a way that the shortest strands came to the top of the backing, which was thus made to grow thicker gradually toward the middle of the bow, where the greatest strength and elasticity were needed. When enough strands had been laid on they were divided into two equal parcels and twisted from the middle into two tight cables, thus greatly increasing the tension to be overcome in drawing the bow. These cables being secured to the handle of the bow, the end of the cord was used to seize the whole securely to the bow.

This seizing and the hitches already mentioned served to incorporate the backing very thoroughly with the bow, thus equalizing the strain and preventing the bow from cracking. This made a very stiff and powerful bow, capable of sending an arrow with great force. We were told by a reliable native that a stone-headed arrow was often driven by 197 one of these bows wholly through a polar bear, “if there was no bone.” Three bows only were obtained: One from Nuwŭk, one from Utkiavwĭñ (a lad’s bow), and one from Sidaru.

The bow from Utkiavwĭñ, No. 89904 [786] (Fig. 177), though small, is in some respects nearer the type than the other two, and has been selected for description. The body of the bow is a single piece of the heart of a log of spruce driftwood 36¼ inches long, elliptical in section, flattened more on the back than on the belly. It is tapered to the nocks, which are small club-shaped knobs, and narrowed and thickened at the handle. The backing is of round three-ply braid of sinew in one continuous piece. The string is a round four-ply braid with a loop at each end, made by tying a single knot in the standing part, passing the end through this and taking a half hitch with it round the standing part (Fig. 178). The upper loop is a little the larger.

No. 89245 [25] (Fig. 179), from Nuwŭk, is a full-sized man’s bow, which is old and has been long in use. It is of the same material, and is 47.3 inches long. Its greatest breadth is 1⅓ inches, and it is 0.8 inch thick at the handle. It is slightly narrowed and thinned off from the broadest part to about 6 inches from each tip, and is then gradually thickened to the nocks and bent up so that the ends make an angle of about 45° with the bow when unstrung. The ends are separate pieces fitted on at the bends. The ends of the body are chamfered off laterally to a wedge which fits into a corresponding notch in the end piece, making a scarf 3¼ inches long, which is strengthened by a curved strap of antler, convex above and thickest in the middle, fitting into the bend on the back. The joint is held together wholly by the backing.

We never saw bows of this pattern made and consequently did not learn how the bending was accomplished. The method is probably the same as that seen by Capt. Beechey in 1826, at Kotzebue Sound (Voyage, p. 575). The bow was wrapped in wet shavings and held over the fire, and then pegged down on the ground (probably on one side), into shape. A strip of rawhide (the split skin of the bearded seal, with the grain side out), 1 inch wide, runs along the back from bend to bend under the backing. The chief peculiarity of this bow is the third cable, above the other two, and the great and apparently unnecessary complication of the hitches.

No. 72771 [234], from Sidaru (Fig. 180a and b), is a bow with bent ends like the last, but all in one piece and smaller. Its length is 43½ inches and its greatest breadth 1⅓. The backing has only two cables, and its chief peculiarity is in having the loose end of the last strand twisted into one of the cables, while the seizing, of the same pattern as in the last bow, is made of a separate piece. The workmanship of this bow is particularly neat, and it is further strengthened with strips of rawhide (the skin of the bearded seal, split), under the backing. The method of making the string is very ingenious. It appears to have been made on the bow, as follows: Having the bow sprung back one end of a long piece of sinew twine was made fast temporarily to the upper nock, leaving an end long enough to finish off the bowstring. The other end was carried round the lower nock and the returning strand half-hitched round the first snugly up to the nock, and then carried round the upper nock and back again. This was repeated, each strand being half-hitched round all the preceding at the lower nock until there were eight parallel strands, and an eye fitted snugly to the lower nock. The bight was then slipped off the upper nock, the end untied and the whole twisted tight. This twisted string is now about 2 inches too long, so the upper eye is made by doubling over 2 inches of the end and stopping it down with the free end mentioned above, thus making a long eye of seven strands. With the end, six similar strands are added to the eye, each being stopped to the twist with a half hitch. The end is neatly tucked in and the strands of the eye twisted tightly together.

In my paper on Eskimo bows, already mentioned, I came to the conclusion that the bows formerly used by the Eskimo of western North America and the opposite coast of Asia were constructed upon three well defined types of definite geographical distribution, and each easily recognized as a development of a simple original type still to be found in Baffin Land in a slightly modified form. These three types are:

I. The Southern type, which was the only form used from the island of Kadiak to Cape Romanzoff, and continued in frequent use as far as Norton Sound, though separated by no hard and fast line from

II. The Arctic type, to which the bows just described belong, in use 199 from the Kaviak peninsula to the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers; and

III. The Western type, confined to St. Lawrence Island and the mainland of Siberia.

I have shown how these three types differ from each other and from the original type, and have expressed the opinion that these differences result from the different resources at the command of the people of different regions. I have also endeavored to account for the fact that we find sporadic examples of the Arctic type, for instance as far south as the Yukon, by the well known habits of the Eskimo in regard to trading expeditions.

Outside of the region treated in my paper above referred to, there is very little material for a comparative study of Eskimo bows, either in the Museum or in the writings of travelers. Most writers have contented themselves with a casual reference to some of the more salient peculiarities of the weapon without giving any detailed information. Beginning at the extreme north of Greenland, we find that the so-called “Arctic Highlanders” have hardly any knowledge of the bow. Dr. Kane saw none during his intercourse with them, but Dr. Bessels295 mentions seeing one bow, made of pieces of antler spliced together, in the possession of a man at Ita. In Danish Greenland, the use of the bow has been abandoned for many years. When Crantz296 wrote it had already gone out of use, though in Egede’s297 time it was still employed. It appears to have been longer than the other Eskimo bows. Nordenskiöld298 reproduces a picture of a group of Greenlanders from an old painting of the date of 1654 in the Ethnographical Museum of Copenhagen. The man holds in his left hand a straight bow, which appears to have the backing reaching only part way to the ends like a western bow without the end cables, and yet twisted into two cables. If this representation be a correct one, this arrangement of the backing, taken in connection with what Crantz and Egede say of the great length of the bow, would be an argument in favor of my theory that the St. Lawrence Island bow was developed from the primitive form by lengthening the ends of the bow without lengthening the backing. The addition of the end cables would then be an after invention, peculiar to the western bow. In Baffin Land the bow is very rudely made, and approaches very closely to my supposed primitive form. Owing to the scarcity of wood in this region the bow was frequently made of reindeer antler, a substance still more unsuitable for the purpose than the soft coniferous woods used elsewhere. There are in the Museum three specimens of such antler bows, brought from Cumberland Gulf by Mr. Kumlien.

The first mention of the Eskimo bow with sinew backing will be found in Frobisher’s account of his visit to Meta Incognita in 1577:299 “Their bowes are of wood of a yard long, sinewed on the back with strong sinewes, not glued too, but fast girded and tyed on. Their bowe strings are likewise sinewes.”

Of the bow used at the straits of Fury and Hecla we have a most excellent figure in Parry’s Second Voyage (Pl. opposite p. 550, Fig. 22), and the most accurate description to be found in any author. It is, in fact, as exact a description as could be made from an external examination of the bow. From the figure the bow appears to have been almost of the arctic type, having an unusual number of strands (sometimes sixty, p. 511) which are not, however, twisted, but secured with a spiral wrapping, as on southern bows. The backing is stopped to the handle, but not otherwise seized. It appears to have been rather a large bow, as Parry gives the length of one of their best bows, made of a single piece of fir, as “4 feet 8 inches” (p. 510). “A bow of one piece is, however, very rare; they generally consist of from two to five pieces of bone of unequal lengths, fastened together by rivets and treenails” (p. 511). Parry also speaks of the use of wedges for tightening the backing. Schwatka300 speaks of the Netyĭlĭk of King Williams Land as using bows of spliced pieces of musk-ox horn or driftwood, but gives no further description of them. Ellis301 describes the bow in use at Hudson’s Strait in 1746 as follows:

Ellis’s figure (plate opposite p. 132) shows a bow of the Tatar shape, but gives no details of the backing, except that the latter appears to be twisted.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, the practice of backing the bow with cords of sinew is peculiar to the Eskimo, though some American Indians stiffen the bow by gluing flat pieces of sinew upon the back.

One tribe of Indians, the “Loucheux” of the Mackenzie district, however, used bows like those of the Eskimos, but Sir Alexander Mackenzie303 expressly states that these were obtained from the Eskimo.

Arrows.—

With these bows were used arrows of various patterns adapted for different kinds of game. There are in the collection fifty-one arrows, which are all about the same length, 25 to 30 inches. In describing these arrows I shall employ the terms used in modern archery304 for the parts of the arrow. The greatest variation is in the shape and size of the pile. The stele is almost always a straight cylindrical rod, almost invariably 0.4 inch in diameter, and ranging in length from 20 to 28 inches. Twenty-five inches is the commonest length, and the short steles, when not intended for a boy’s bow, are generally fitted with an unusually long pile. From the beginning of the feathering the stele is gradually flattened above and below to the nock, which is a simple notch almost always 0.2 inch wide and of the same depth. The stele is sometimes slightly widened just in front of the nock to give a better hold for the fingers. The feathering is 6 or 7 inches long, consisting of two, or less often, three feathers. (The set of sixteen arrows from Sidaru, two from Nuwŭk, and one from Utkiavwĭñ, have three feathers. The rest of the fifty-one have two.) The shaft of the feather is split and the web is cut narrow, and tapered off to a point at each end (Fig. 181). The ends of the feathers are fastened to the stele with whippings of fine sinew, the small end of the feather which, of course, comes at the nock, being often wedged into a slit in the wood (with a special tool to be described below), or else doubled back over a few turns of the whipping and lashed down with the rest. The small end of the feather is almost always twisted about one turn, evidently to make the arrow revolve in flight, like a rifle ball. Generally, if not universally, the feathering was made of the feathers of some bird of prey, falcon, eagle, or raven, probably with some notion of giving to the arrow the death-dealing quality of the bird. Out of the fifty-one arrows in the collection, only nine are feathered with gull’s feathers, and of these all but two are new, or newly feathered for sale to us.305 Dr. Simpson306 says that in his time “feathers for arrows and head-dresses,” probably the eagles’ feathers previously mentioned, were obtained in trade from the “Nunatañmiun.”

Four kinds of arrows were used: the bear arrow, of which there were three varieties, the deer arrow, the arrow for geese, gulls, and other large fowl, and the blunt headed arrow for killing small birds without mangling them.

Bear arrows.—

These are of three kinds, all having a broad, sharp pile, often barbed. The first kind has a pile of flaked flint, called kūki (“claw” or “nail”), and was known as kukĭ´ksadlĭñ (“provided or fitted with claw material”). Of this kind we have eight complete arrows and one shaft.

No. 89240 [25], Fig. 182, will serve as the type. The pile is of black flint, double edged and sharp pointed, 2 inches long, with a short tang inserted into a cleft in the end of the stele, and secured by a whipping of about fifteen turns of fine sinew. The stele is of spruce, 25½ inches long and four-tenths inch in diameter, and painted with red ocher from the feathering to 5 inches from the pile. The three feathers, apparently those of the gyrfalcon, have their ends simply whipped to the stele. They are 6 inches long. This is one of the two arrows from Nuwŭk with three feathers.

No. 72780 [234a], from Sidaru, is feathered with three raven feathers, of which the small ends are wedged into slits in the wood. The pile is of brown jasper, long and lancet-tipped, expanding into rounded wings at each side of the base. The stele is peculiar only in being slightly widened in front of the nock. It is of pine, 26.8 inches long, and painted with two rings, one red and one green, at the middle of the feathering.

The only variations of importance in these arrows are in the shape of the pile, which is made of black or gray flint, or less often of jasper, mostly variegated, brown and gray. There are four patterns to be found in the series of eight arrows and twenty-two stone piles. The first is long and narrow, like No. 56704 [232], Fig. 183, from Utkiavwĭñ, which is of gray flint. The next is similar in shape, but shorter, as shown in Fig. 182 (No. 89240 [25], from Nuwŭk), which is only 2 inches long, exclusive of the tang. The third pattern, which is less common than the others, is about the size of the last, but rhomboidal in shape (Fig. 184, No. 56691c [64c], from Utkiavwĭñ, of dark grayish brown flint, rather coarsely flaked). The fourth kind is very short, being not over 1½ inches, including the half-inch tang, but is 1 inch broad, thick and convex on both faces. It is triangular, with a square base and curved edges (Fig. 185, No. 56702b [113b], from Utkiavwĭñ, newly made for sale).

Fig. 186.—Arrows: (a) Arrow with “after-pile” (ipudlĭgadlĭñ); (b) arrow with iron pile (savidlĭñ); (c) arrow with iron pile (savidlĭñ); (d) arrow with copper pile (savidlĭñ); (e) deer-arrow (nûtkodlĭñ).

No stone arrow or dart heads made by these people have anything like barbs except the square shoulders at the base. They seem never to have attained to the skill in flint-working which enabled many other savages to make the beautiful barbed heads so often seen. To keep the flint-headed arrow from dropping out of the wound they hit upon the contrivance of mounting it not directly in the stele but in a piece of bone upon which barbs could be cut, or, as is not unlikely, having already the deer arrow with the barbed head of antler, they added the flint head to this, thus combining the penetration of the flint arrow with the holding power of the other. I was at first inclined to think that this piece of bone bore the same relation to the rest of the arrow as the fore shaft of many Indian arrows, and was to be considered as part of the stele. Considering, however, that its sole function is to furnish the pile with barbs, it evidently must be considered as part of the latter. I shall designate it as “after-pile.” Arrows with this barbed “after-pile” form the second kind of bear arrows, which are called ipudlĭ´gadlĭñ (“having the ipu´dlĭgɐ” [Gr. ipuligak, the similar bone head of a seal lance with iron tip]). After the introduction of iron, metal piles sometimes replaced the flint in arrows of this kind. We collected eight with flint and two with metal piles. No. 72787 [234a], Fig. 186a, has been selected to illustrate this form of arrow. This pile is of gray flint with the tang wedged by a slip of sealskin into the tip of the after-pile, which is cleft to receive it and kept from splitting by a whipping of sinew. The after-pile is fitted into the tip of the stele with a rounded sharp-pointed tang, slightly enlarged just above the tip. It is of reindeer 204 antler. The rest of the arrow does not differ from those previously described. The stele is of pine and is feathered with three gyrfalcon feathers.

Two others from Sidaru have only a single barb on the after-pile, but the other four have two, one behind the other on the same side. No. 89237 [164], from Utkiavwĭñ, differs in no respect from the single-barbed flint arrows from Sidaru, but No. 72763 [164], from the same village, has four small barbs on the after-pile, which is unusually (nearly 7 inches) long, and a pile of sheet brass. This has the basal angles on each side cut into three small, sharp, backward-pointing teeth. The total length of this arrow is 28 inches.

The after-piles of all arrows except one were of reindeer antler, which is another reason for supposing that this form of arrow is a modification of the deer arrow. After the introduction of iron, this metal or copper was substituted for the flint pile of the kukĭ´ksadlĭñ, making the third and last form of bear arrow, the sa´vĭdlĭñ (“fitted with iron”). This arrow differs from the others only in the form of the pile, which is generally broad and flat, and either rhomboidal, with the base cut into numerous small teeth, or else triangular, with a shank. The barbs are usually bilateral.

No. 72758 [25], from Nuwŭk, represents the first form. The pile is of iron, rough and flat, 2½ inches long. No. 72770 [241b], from Utkiavwĭñ, is of the same form. No. 72760 [165], Fig. 186c, from Utkiavwĭñ, has a similar pile 3.3 inches long, but has each of the under edges cut into four sharp, backward-pointing teeth. No. 72778 [234b], Fig. 186d, has a pile of sheet copper 2.3 inches long, of the same shape, but with six teeth. This arrow came from Sidaru. No. 72765 [25], from Nuwŭk, is a long, narrow iron pile with three bilateral barbs, all simple.

Nos. 72755 [25], from Nuwŭk, 72759 [25], also from Nuwŭk, and 72764 [165], from Utkiavwĭñ, show the shanked form. The first is triangular, with a flat shank and a simple barb at each angle of the base. It is of steel (piece of a saw) and 2.8 inches long. The second resembles No. 72760 [165], with more teeth, mounted on a slender cylindrical shank 1½ inches long. It is of iron and 3.9 inches long. The third is a long pile with a sinuate outline and one pair of simple bilateral barbs, and a flat shank one-half inch long. Nos. 72757 [25] (Fig. 186b) and 72762 [25], both from Nuwŭk, are peculiar in being the only iron-pointed arrows with unilateral barbs. The piles are made of the two blades of a pair of large scissors, cut off at the point, with enough of the handle left to make a tang. The unilateral barb is filed out on the back of the blade, which has been beveled down on both faces to a sharp edge. All of these broadheaded arrows have the breadth of the pile at right angles to the plane of the nock, showing that they are not meant to fly like the Sioux war arrows. Although iron makes a better material for arrow piles and is more easily worked than flint, the quivers which some men still carry at Point Barrow contain flint as well as iron headed arrows. They are probably 205 kept in use from the superstitious conservatism already mentioned. It is certain that the man who raised a couple of wolf cubs for the sake of their fur was obliged by tradition to have a flint-headed arrow to kill them with. These arrows, we were informed, were especially designed for hunting “nä´nu,” the polar bear, but of course they also served for use against other dangerous game, like the wolf and brown bear, and there is no reason to believe that they were not also shot at reindeer, though the hunter would naturally use his deer arrows first.

Deer arrows have a long trihedral pile of antler from 4 to 8 inches long, with a sharp thin-edged point slightly concaved on the faces like the point of a bayonet. Two of the edges are rounded, but the third is sharp and cut into one or more simple barbs. Behind the barb the pile takes the form of a rounded shank, ending in a shoulder and a sharp rounded tang a little enlarged above the point.

No. 72768 [162], Fig. 186e from Utkiavwĭñ, has a pile 3½ inches long with two barbs. The pile of No. 89238 [162] from the same village is 3½ inches long and has but one barb, while that of No. 89241a [162] is 7.8 inches long and has three barbs. The rudely incised figure on the shank of No. 89238 [162] represents a wolf, probably a talisman to make the arrow as fatal to the deer as the wolf is. No. 56588 [13], Fig. 187, is a pile for one of these arrows slightly peculiar in shape, being elliptical in section, with one edge sharp and two-barbed and a four-sided point. The figure shows well the shape of the tang. The peculiarity of these arrows is that the pile is not fastened to the shaft, but can easily be detached.307 When such an arrow was shot into a deer the shaft would easily be shaken out, leaving the sharp barbed pile in the wound.

The Eskimo told us that a deer wounded in this way would “sleep once and die,” meaning, apparently, that death would ensue in about twenty-four hours, probably from peritonitis. The bone pile is called nû´tkăñ, whence comes the name of the arrow, nû´tko´dlĭñ. We collected ten arrows and three piles of this pattern. No. 89460 [1263], Fig. 188, is a peculiar bone arrow pile, perhaps intended for a deer arrow. It is 7 inches long and made of one of the long bones of some large bird, split lengthwise so that it is rounded on one side and deeply concave on the other, with two thin rounded edges tapered to a sharp point. Each 206 edge has three little barbs about the middle of the pile. This was the only arrowhead of the kind seen at Point Barrow, and the native who sold it said it was a “Kûñmûd´lĭñ” arrow. I was pleased to find the truth of this corroborated by the Museum collection. There are two arrows from the Mackenzie region (Nos. 1106 and 1906) with bone piles of almost the same form.

For shooting gulls, geese, and other large fowl they used an arrow with a straight polygonal pile of walrus ivory, 5 or 6 inches long and about one-half inch in diameter, terminating in a somewhat obtuse polygonal point, and having one or more unilateral barbs. These piles are generally five-sided, though sometimes trihedral, and have a long, rounded tang inserted into the end of the shaft. Fig. 189a (No. 89349 [119] from Utkiavwĭñ), represents one of these arrows with a five-sided pile 5.5 inches long, with four simple barbs. The rest of the arrow does not differ from the others described. No. 89238 [25], from Nuwŭk, has a trihedral pile 6.6 inches long, with a single barb. Another from Nuwŭk (No. 89241 [25]) has a trihedral pile 5.3 inches long, with two barbs, and one from Utkiavwĭñ (No. 89241 [119]) has a five-sided pile with three barbs. The remaining three, from Sidaru, all have five-sided piles with one barb.

Arrows of this pattern are called tuga´lĭñ (from tu´ga, walrus ivory). There are also in the collection two small arrows of this pattern suited for a boy’s bow. They are only 25 inches long, and have roughly trihedral sharp-pointed ivory piles about 4 inches long, without barbs. (No. 89904a [786] from Utkiavwĭñ). These arrows are new and rather carelessly made, and were intended for the lad’s bow (No. 89904 [786]) already described. The three kinds of arrows which have been described all have the pile secured to the stele by a tang fitting into a cleft or hole in the end of the latter, which is kept from splitting by whipping it with sinew for about one-half inch.

The fourth kind, the blunt bird arrow (kĭ´xodwain), on the other hand, has the pile cleft to receive the wedge-shaped tip of the stele and secured by a whipping of sinew. The four arrows of this kind in the collection are almost exactly alike, except that three of them, belonging to the set from Sidaru, have three feathers. Fig. 189b, No. 72773 [234c] from Sidaru represents the form of arrow. The pile is of hard bone 2.3 inches long. A little rim at each side of the butt keeps the whipping of sinew from slipping off. The rest of the arrow differs from the others described only in having the end of the stele chamfered down to a wedge-shaped point to fit into the pile.

This is the kind of arrow mostly used by the boys, whose game is almost exclusively small birds or lemmings. Nowadays the bone pile 207 is often replaced by an empty cartridge shell, which makes a very good head. I have seen a phalarope transfixed at short range by one of these cartridge-headed arrows. An assortment of the different kind of arrows is usually carried in the quiver. The lot numbered 25, from Nuwŭk, which I believe to be a fairly average set, contains two flint-headed bear arrows, one barbed bear arrow with a steel pile, six bear arrows with iron piles, one deer arrow, two fowl arrows, and one bird arrow.

As I have already said, all these arrows are flattened above and below at the nocks. This indicates that they were intended to be held to the string and let go after the manner of what is called the “Saxon release,” namely, by hooking the ends of the index and second fingers round the string and holding the arrow between them, the string being released by straightening the fingers. This is the “release” which we actually saw employed both by the boys and one or two men who showed us how to draw the bow. This method of release has been observed at Cumberland Gulf308 and at East Cape, Siberia, and is probably universal among the Eskimo, as all the Eskimo arrows in the National Museum are fitted for this release. There is ample material in the Museum collections for a comparative study of Eskimo arrows, which I hope some day to be able to undertake, when the material is in a more available condition. One or two references to other regions will not, however, be out of place. The arrow with a barbed bone after-pile seems a very general form, being represented in the Museum from most of the Alaskan regions, as well as from the Mackenzie. Scoresby mentions finding the head of one of these at the ancient settlements in east Greenland.309 The arrow, however, described by Capt. Parry310 has a real foreshaft of bone, not a barbed after pile. One of these arrows from the Mackenzie has the after pile barbed on both sides, the only instance, I believe, in the Museum of a bilaterally-barbed Eskimo arrow where the pile is not wholly of metal.

Bow cases and quivers.—

The bow and arrows were carried in a bow case and quiver of black sealskin, tied together side by side and slung across the back in the same manner as the gun holster already described. We obtained one case and quiver which belong with the bow and arrows (No. 25, from Nuwŭk) and a single quiver with the bow and arrows (No. 234, from Sidaru.) The case, No. 89245 [25], Fig. 190a (pizĭ´ksĭzax), is of such a shape that the bow can be carried in it strung and ready for use. It is made by folding lengthwise a piece of black sealskin with the flesh side in and sewing up one side “over and over” from the outside. The bag is wide enough—6 inches at the widest part—to allow the bow to slip in easily when strung, and the small end 208 is bent up into the shape of the end of the bow. Along the folded edge are three round holes about 10 inches apart, through which a round stick was formerly thrust, coming out from the inside through the first hole, in through the second and out through the third again. This served to hold the case in shape when the bow was withdrawn, and to its ends were fastened the thong for slinging it across the shoulders. It was gone from the specimen before we obtained it.

The quiver (No. 89240-1 [25], Fig. 190b) is a long, straight bag of the same material, open at one end, with a seam down one side, and the edge of the mouth opposite to the seam forming a rounded flap 2 inches long. The other end is closed by an elliptical cap of white tanned seal skin, turned up about 2 inches all round, and crimped round the ends like a boot sole. Its extreme length is 30 inches, and its circumference 1 foot. Inside along the seam is a roughly rounded rod of wood about ½ inch in diameter, with one end, which is pointed, projecting about 1½ inches through a hole in the bottom, and the other projecting about 1 209 inch beyond the mouth, where it is secured by a bit of thong knotted through a couple of small holes in the bag close to the edge and passing round a notch on the stick. The stick serves to stiffen the quiver when there are no arrows in it. A bit of thong is knotted round the middle, one end being hitched into a loop on the other, for tightening up the quiver and confining the arrows.

The quiver from Sidaru (No. 72788 [234] Fig. 190c) is like the preceding, but larger at the bottom than at the mouth. The latter is 8½ inches in circumference and the former 12¾, and the seam is left open for about 7½ inches from the mouth to facilitate getting at the arrows. The stiffening rod is made of pine, and does not project through the bottom or reach the edge of the mouth. It is held in by two pieces of thong about 10 inches long, which also serve to fasten it to the bow case. This quiver is nearly new.

It is probable that the form of the bow case and quiver varied but little, among the American Eskimo at least. Those figured by Capt. Lyon311 are almost exactly like the ones we collected at Point Barrow, even to the crimped cap on the bottom of the quiver. A similar set belong with a lad’s bow in the Museum from Point Hope (No. 63611). Nordenskiöld, however, figures a very elaborate flat quiver312, in use at Pitlekaj, which is evidently of genuine Asiatic origin.

Some pains seem to have been bestowed on ornamenting the quiver in former times, when the bow was in more general use. Fig. 191, No. 56505 [231], from Nuwŭk, represents what we understood had been a stiffening rod for a quiver or bow case. It is of reindeer antler, 17 inches long, and one end is very neatly carved into the head and shoulders of a reindeer, with small, blue glass beads inserted for the eyes. The lanceolate point at the tip was probably made with an idea of improving it for sale. The hole at the back of the neck is for a thong to fasten it on with. A similar reindeer head of antler, Fig. 192, No. 89449 [1066], also from Nuwŭk, seems to have been a cap for a quiver stick. The back of the neck makes a half-ferrule, in which are three holes for rivets or treenails.

Bracers.—

In shooting the bow, the wrist of the bow hand was protected 210 from being chafed by the bowstring by a small shield or “bracer” of bone or horn, strapped on with a thong. We never saw these in use, as the bow is so seldom employed except by the children. Two of these, newly made, were offered for sale. I will describe one of these, No. 89410b [1233], Fig. 193.

It is of pale yellow mountain sheep horn, convex on the outer face and concave on the inner and considerably arched lengthwise. In the middle are two straight longitudinal narrow slots, which serve no apparent purpose except ornament. The short slot near the edge at the middle of each side, however, is for the thongs which strap the bracer to the wrist. One of these is short and made into a becket by fastening the ends together with double slits. One end of the other is passed through the slot, slit, and the other end passed through this and drawn taut. A knot is tied on the free end. This thong is just long enough to fasten on the bracer by passing round the wrist and catching the knot in the loop opposite. The other, No. 89410a [1233], is like this, but 1 inch shorter and nearly flat. The arch of the specimen figured is probably unintentional and due to the natural shape of the material, as it does not fit well to the wrist. It is probable that these people used a flat bracer, as Fig. 194, No. 89350 [1382], from Utkiavwĭñ, is apparently such an implement. It is a thin elliptical plate of hard bone, 2½ inches long and 1½ wide, with two rows of holes crossing at right angles in the middle. The holes at the side were probably for the thong and the others for ornament, as some of them go only part way through. Four small pebbles are lodged in the four holes around the center in the form of a cross.

Mr. Nelson collected several specimens of bracers from Kotzebue Sound and St. Lawrence Island. These are all slightly larger than our specimens, and bent round to fit the wrist. They are of bone or copper. When Beechey visited Kotzebue Sound, in 1826, he found the bracer in general use.313 I find no other mention of this implement in the writers who have described the Eskimo.

Bird darts.—

For capturing large birds like ducks or geese, sitting on the water, especially when they have molted their wing feathers so as to be unable to escape by flight, they use the universal Eskimo weapon, found from Greenland to Siberia, namely, a dart with one or more points at the tip, but carrying a second set of three ivory prongs 211 in a circle round the middle of the shaft. The object of these prongs is to increase the chance of hitting the bird if he is missed by the head of the dart. They always curve forward, so that the points stand out a few inches from the shaft, and are barbed on the inner edge in such a way that, though the neck of a fowl will easily pass in between the prong and the shaft, it is impossible to draw it back again. The weapon is in very general use at Point Barrow, and is always thrown from the boat with a handboard (to be described below). It can be darted with considerable accuracy 20 or 30 yards. We seldom saw this spear used, as it is chiefly employed in catching molting fowl, in the summer season, away from the immediate neighborhood of the station. It is called nuiă´kpai, which is a plural referring to the number of points, one of which is called nuiă´kpûk (“the great nuiăk”).314

No. 89244 [1325], Fig. 195, from Utkiavwĭñ, has been selected as the type of this weapon. The shaft is of spruce, 61⅓ inches long and 0.7 inch in diameter at the head. The end of the butt is hollowed out to fit the catch of the throwing board. The head, of white walrus ivory, is fitted into the cleft end of the shaft with a wedge-shaped tang as broad as the shaft. The head and shaft are held together by a spaced lashing of braided sinew. To the enlargement of the shaft, 22 inches from the butt, are fastened three curved prongs of walrus ivory at equal distances from each other round the shaft. The inner side of each prong is cut away obliquely for about 2 inches, so that when this edge is applied to the shaft, with the point of the prong forward, the latter is about 1 inch from the shaft. Each prong has two little ridges on the outside, one at the lower end and the other about 1 inch above this. They are secured to the shaft by three separate lashings of sinew braid, two narrow ones above the ridges just mentioned and one broad one just below the barb. In making this the line is knotted round one prong, then carried one-third of the distance round the shaft to the prong; half hitched round this, and carried round next the next prong; half hitched round this, and carried round to the starting point, and half hitched round 212 this. It goes around in this way seven times, and then is carried one prong farther, half hitched again, and the end taken down and made fast to the first narrow lashing. The shaft is painted with red ocher to within 13½ inches (the length of the throwing board) from the butt. This is an old shaft and head fitted with new prongs, and was made by Nĭkawa´alu, who was anxious to borrow it again when getting ready to start on his summer trip to the east, where he would find young ducks and molting fowl.

The form of head seen in this dart appears to be the commonest. It is called by the same name, nû´tkăñ, as the bone head of the deer arrow. There is considerable variation in the number of barbs, which are always bilateral, except in one instance, No. 56590 [122], Fig. 196, from Utkiavwĭñ, which has four barbs on one side only. It is 7¼ inches long exclusive of the tang. Out of eight specimens of such heads one has one pair of barbs, one two pairs, two three pairs, one four unilateral barbs, one five pairs, one six pairs, and one seven pairs. The total length of these heads is from 9 inches to 1 foot, of which the tang makes about 2 inches, and they are generally made of walrus ivory, wherein they differ from the nugfit of the Greenlanders, which, since Crantz’s time315 has always had a head of iron. Iron is also used at Cumberland Gulf, as shown by the specimens in the National Museum. Fig. 197 represents a very ancient spearhead from Utkiavwĭñ, No. 89372 [760]. It is of compact whale’s bone, darkened with age and impregnated with oil. It is 8.7 inches long and the other end is beveled off into a wedge-shaped tang roughened with crosscuts on both faces, with a small hole for the end of a lashing as on the head of No. 89244 [1325]. This was called by the native who sold it the head of a seal spear, ă´kqlĭgûk, and it does bear some slight resemblance to the head of weapon used in Greenland and called by a similar name316 (agdligaḵ). The roughened tang, however, indicates that it was intended to be fixed permanently in the shaft, and this, taken in connection with its strong resemblance to the one-barbed head of the Greenland nugfit317 as well as to the head of the Siberian bird dart figured by Nordenskiöld318, makes it probable that it is really the form of bird dart head anciently used at Point Barrow. It is possible 213 that this pattern has been so long out of use that the natives have forgotten what this old point was made for and supposed it to belong to a seal spear.

One of the eight heads of the ordinary pattern in the collection, No. 56592 [284], a genuine one, old and dirty, is made of coarse-grained whale’s bone, an unusual material. No. 89373 [948], from Utkiavwĭñ, an ivory head of a good typical shape, has been figured (Fig. 198) to show a common style of ornamenting these heads. A narrow incised line, colored with red ocher, runs along the base of the barbs on each side for about three-fourths the length of the blade. These heads are sometimes secured by treenails as well as by a simple lashing, as is shown by the holes through the tang of this specimen.

An improvement on this style of dart, which appears to be less common, has two prongs at the tip instead of a sharp head, so that the bird may be caught if struck on the neck with the point of the spear. No. 89905 [1326], Fig. 199, from Utkiavwĭñ, is one of this pattern. The two prongs are fastened on with a lashing of fine sinew braid. The rest of the dart does not differ from the one described except in the method of attaching the three prongs at the middle (Fig. 199b). These are fitted into slight grooves in the wood and secured by two neat lashings of narrow strips of whalebone, one just above a little ridge at the lower end of each prong and one through little holes in each prong at the top of the oblique edge. Each lashing consists of several turns with the end closely wrapped around them. There is one specimen, No. 89242 [526], in the collection which not only has not the prongs at the middle, but lacks the enlargement of the shaft to receive them. The head is undoubtedly old and genuine, but the shaft and fittings, though dirty, look suspiciously fresh. I am inclined to believe that this head was mounted for sale by a man who had no prongs ready made, and was in too much of a hurry to get his price to stop to make them. Imperfect or unfinished objects were frequently offered for sale.

The bird darts used at Point Barrow, and by the western Eskimo generally, are lighter and better finished than those used in the east. The latter have a heavy shaft, which is four-sided in Baffin Land, and the prongs are crooked and clumsy.319

Fig. 200, No. 89380 [793], is a fragment of a very ancient narwhal ivory spearhead, dark brown from age and shiny from much handling, which appears to have been worn as an amulet. It was said to have come from the east and to belong to a bird dart, though it does not resemble any in use at the present day in this region. It is a slender four-sided rod, having on one side three short oblique equidistant simple barbs. The resemblance of this specimen to the bone dart heads from Scania figured by Dr. Rau320 is very striking.

Seal darts.—

The Eskimo of nearly all localities use a dart or small harpoon to capture the smaller marine animals, with a loose, barbed head of bone fitted into a socket in the end of the shaft, to which it is attached by a line of greater or less length. It is always contrived so that when the head is struck into the quarry, the shaft is detached from the head and acts as a drag upon the animal. This is effected by attaching an inflated bladder to the shaft, or else by attaching the line with a martingale so that the shaft is dragged sideways through the water. Nearly all Eskimo except those of Point Barrow, as shown in the National Museum collections and the figures in Crantz321 and Rink322, use weapons of this kind of considerable size, adapted not only to the capture of the small seals (Phoca vitulina and P. fœtida), but also to the pursuit of the larger seals, the narwhal and beluga. At Point Barrow, however, at the present day, they employ only a small form of this dart, not over 5 feet long, with a little head, adapted only for holding the smallest seals. That they formerly used the larger weapon is shown by our finding a single specimen of the head of such a spear, No. 89374 [1281] Fig. 201. It is of hard, compact bone, impregnated with oil, 8.1 inches long. The flat shank is evidently intended to fit into a socket. The two holes through the widest part of the shank are for attaching the line.

This is very like the head of the weapon called agligak (modern Greenlandic agdligak), figured by Crantz, and referred to above, except that the barbs are opposite each other. Mr. Lucien M. Turner tells me that it is precisely like the head of the dart used at Norton Sound for capturing the beluga. The native who sold this specimen called it “nuiă´kpai nû´tkoa,” “the point of a bird dart,” to which it does bear some resemblance, though the shape of the butt and the line holes indicate plainly that it was a detachable dart head. Probably, as in the case of the ancient bird dart point, No. 89372 [760], referred to above, this weapon has been so long disused that the natives have forgotten what it was. The name ă´kqlĭgûk, evidently the same as the 215 Greenlandic agdligak, is still in use, but was always applied to the old bone harpoon heads, which are, however, of the toggle-head pattern (described below). It seems as if the Point Barrow natives had forgotten all about the ă´kqlĭgûk except that it was a harpoon with a bone head for taking seals. At the present time the small bladder float, permanently attached to the shaft of the harpoon, is never used at Point Barrow. That it was used in ancient times is shown by our finding in one of the ruined houses in Utkiavwĭñ a very old broken nozzle for inflating one of these floats. Fig. 202, No. 89720 [756], is this specimen, which was picked up by Capt. Herendeen. This is a rounded tube of fossil ivory, 1.3 inches long and about one-half inch in diameter, slightly contracted toward one end and then expanded into a stout collar. At the other is a stout longitudinal flange, three-fourths inch long, perforated with an oblong slot. Between the flange and the collar the surface is roughened with crosscuts, and the other end is still choked with the remains of a wooden plug. This nozzle was inserted into a hole in the bladder as far as the flange and secured by tying the bladder above the collar. The whole was then secured to the shaft by a lashing through the slot, and could be inflated at pleasure and corked up with the wooden plug.

As I have already said, the only harpoon of this kind now used at Point Barrow is a small one intended only for the capture of small seals. It has no bladder, but the rather long line is attached to the shaft by a martingale which makes the shaft drag sideways through the water. Three of these little darts, which are thrown with a handboard like the bird dart, make a set. The resistance of the shafts 216 of these three spears darted into the seal in succession is said to be sufficient to fatigue the seal so that he can be easily approached and dispatched. We never saw these weapons used, though they are very common, as they are intended only for use from the kaiak, which these people seldom use in the neighborhood of the villages. When in the umiak, shooting with the rifle is a more expeditious means of taking seals. We collected three sets of these darts (kúkigû).

No. 89249b [523], Fig. 203, has been selected for description. The shaft is of spruce, 54½ inches long, and 0.8 inch in diameter at the tip, tapering slightly almost to the butt, which is hollowed on the end to fit the catch of the throwing board. The foreshaft is of white walrus ivory 5 inches long, and is fitted into the tip of the shaft with a wedge-shaped tang. This foreshaft, which has a deep oblong slot to receive the head in the middle of its flat tip, serves the double purpose of making a strong solid socket for the head and giving sufficient weight to the end of the dart to make it fly straight. The head is a simple flat barbed arrowhead of hard bone 2.3 inches long and one-half inch broad across the barbs, with a flat tang, broadest in the middle, where there is a hole for attaching the line. This head simply serves to attach the drag of the shaft to the seal as it is too small to inflict a serious wound. It is fastened to the shaft by a martingale made as follows: One end of a stout line of sinew braid 5½ feet long is passed through the hole in the head and secured by tying a knot in the end. The other end of this line divides into two parts not quite so stout, one 3 feet long, the other 2 feet 8 inches. The latter is fastened to the shaft 18½ inches from the butt by a single marling hitch with the end wedged into a slit in the wood and seized down with fine sinew. The longer part serves to fasten the foreshaft to the shaft, and was probably put on separately and worked into the braiding of the rest of the line at the junction. The foreshaft is kept from slipping out by a little transverse ridge on each side of the tang. When the weapon is mounted for use the two parts of the bridle are brought together at the middle of the shaft and wrapped spirally around it till only enough line is left to permit the head to be inserted in the socket, and the bight of the line is secured by tucking it under the last turn. When a seal is struck with this dart his sudden plunge to escape unships the head. The catch of the martingale immediately slips; the latter unrolls and drags the shaft through the water at right angles to the line. The shaft, besides acting as a drag on the seal’s motions, also serves as a float to indicate his position to the hunter, as its buoyancy brings it to the surface before the seal when the latter rises for air.

The shaft is usually painted red except so much of the end as lies in the groove of the throwing-board, in the act of darting. These darts vary but little in size and material, and are all of essentially the same pattern. They are always about 5 feet in length when mounted for use. (The longest is 64⅓ inches, and the shortest 57.) The head, as 217 well as the foreshaft, is sometimes made of walrus ivory, and the latter sometimes of whale’s bone. The chief variation is in the length of the martingale, and the details of the method of attaching it. No two are precisely alike. The foreshaft is generally plain, but is occasionally highly ornamented, as is shown in Fig. 204, No. 56516 [105]. The figures are all incised and colored, some with ocher and some with soot.

Both of the kinds of darts above described are thrown by means of a hand board or throwing-board. This is a flat, narrow board, from 15 to 18 inches long, with a handle at one end and a groove along the upper surface in which the spear lies with the butt resting against a catch at the other end. The dart is propelled by a quick motion of the wrist, as in casting with a fly-rod, which swings up the tip of the board and launches the dart forward. This contrivance, which practically makes of the hand a lever 18 inches long, enables the thrower by a slight motion of the wrist to impart great velocity to the dart. The use of this implement is universal among the Eskimo, though not peculiar to them. The Greenlanders, however, not only use it for the two kinds of darts already mentioned, but have adapted it to the large harpoon.323 This is undoubtedly to adapt the large harpoon for use from the kaiak, which the Greenlanders use more habitually than most other Eskimo. On the other hand, the people of Baffin Land and the adjoining regions, as well as the inhabitants of northeastern Siberia, use it only with the bird dart.324 Throughout western North America the throwing-board is used essentially as at Point Barrow. Prof. O. T. Mason has given325 an interesting account of the different forms of throwing-board used by the Eskimo and Aleuts of North America.

We obtained five specimens of the form used at Point Barrow. No. 89233 [523], Fig. 205a, belonging to the set of seal darts bearing the same collector’s number, has been selected as the type. This is made of spruce, and the hole is for the forefinger. A little peg of walrus ivory, shaped like a flat-headed nail, is driven through the middle of the tip so that the edge of the head just projects into the groove. This fits into the hollow in the butt of the dart and serves to steady it. It is painted red on the back and sides. Fig. 205b, No. 89235 [60], differs from this in having a double curve instead of being flat. A slight advantage is gained by this as in a crooked lever. The catch is a small iron nail. The others are essentially the same as the type. No. 89234 [528], has a small brass screw for the catch, and No. 89902 [1326], has an ivory peg of a slightly different shape, the head having only a projecting point on one side. They are generally painted with red ocher except on the inside of the groove. There appears to be no difference between throwing-boards meant for seal darts and those used with the bird dart.

Unfortunately I had no opportunity of observing accurately how the handle was grasped, but it is probably held as seen by Beechey at Eschscholtz Bay,326 namely, with the forefinger in the hole, the thumb and middle finger clasped round the spear, and the third and little fingers clasping the handle under the spear. This seems a very natural way of holding it. Of course, the fingers release the spear at the moment of casting. All the throwing-boards from Point Barrow are right-handed.

Harpoons.—

All kinds of marine animals, including the smaller seals, which are also captured with the darts just described and with nets, are pursued with harpoons of the same general type, but of different patterns for the different animals. They may be divided into two classes—those intended for throwing, which come under the head of projectile weapons, and those which do not leave the hand, but are thrust into the animal. These fall properly under the head of thrusting weapons. Both classes agree in having the head only attached permanently to the line, fitted loosely to the end of the shaft, and arranged so that when struck into the animal it is detached from the shaft, and turns under the skin at right angles to the line, like a toggle, so that it is almost impossible for it to draw out.

No. 89793 [873], Fig. 206, is a typical toggle head of this kind, intended for a walrus harpoon (túkɐ), and will be described in full, as the names of the different parts will apply to all heads of this class. The body is a conoidal piece, 4½ inches in length, and flattened laterally so that at the widest part it is 1 inch wide and 0.7 thick. On one side, which may be called the lower, it is cut off straight for about half the 219 longer diameter, while the upper side is produced into a long, four-sided spur, the barb. The line hole is a round hole about one-fourth inch in diameter, a little back of the middle of the body, at right angles to its longer diameter. From this, on each side, run shallow line grooves to the base of the body, gradually deepening as they run into the line hole. In the middle of the base of the body is the deep, cup-shaped shaft-socket, which fits the conical tip of the shaft or fore shaft. In the tip of the body is cut, at right angles to the longer diameter of the body, and therefore at right angles to the plane of the barb, the narrow blade slit, 1.1 inches deep, into which fits, secured by a single median rivet of whalebone, the flat, thin blade of metal (brass in this case). This is triangular, with curved edges, narrowly beveled on both faces, and is 1.9 inches long and 1 broad.

The body is sometimes cut into faces so as to be hexagonal instead of elliptical in section as in Fig. 207 (No. 89791 [873]), and intermediate forms are common. When such a head is mounted for use a bight of the line or leader, a short line for connecting the head with the main line, runs through the line hole so that the head is slung in a loop in the end of the line. The tip of the shaft is then fitted into the shaft socket and the line brought down the shaft with the parts of the loop on each side resting in the line grooves and is made fast, usually so that a slight pull will detach it from the shaft. When the animal is struck the blade cuts a wound large enough to allow the head to pass in beyond the barb. The struggles of the animal make the head slip off the tip of the shaft and the strain on the line immediately toggles it across the wound. The toggle head of the whale harpoon is called kia¢ron, of the walrus harpoon, tukɐ, and of the seal harpoon, naulɐ. They are all of essentially the same pattern, differing chiefly in size.

There is in the collection an interesting series of old harpoon heads, showing a number of steps in the development of the modern pattern of harpoon head from an ancient form. These heads seem to have been preserved as amulets; in fact one of them is still attached to a belt. They are not all of the same kind, but since the different kinds as mentioned above practically differ only in size, their development was probably the same. The earliest form in the collection is No. 89382 [1383], Fig. 208, from Nuwŭk, which is evidently very old, as it is much worn and weathered. It is a single flat piece of fine-grained bone 3 inches long, pointed at the end and provided with a single unilateral barb. 220 Behind this it is narrowed and then widened into a broad flat base produced on one side into a sharp barb, in the same plane as the other barb, which represents the blade, but on the opposite side. The line hole is large and irregularly triangular, and there are no line grooves. Instead of a shaft socket bored in the solid body, one side of the body is excavated into a deep longitudinal groove, which was evidently converted into a socket by a transverse band, probably of sealskin, running round the body, and kept in place by a shallow transverse groove on the convex side of it. A harpoon head with the socket made by inclosing a groove with thongs was seen by Dr. Kane at Smith Sound.327

The next form, No. 89331 [932], Fig. 209a, has two bilateral barbs to the blade part, thus increasing its holding power. Instead of an open transverse groove to hold the thong, it has two slots parallel to the socket groove running obliquely to the other side, where they open into a shallow depression. Figs. 209b and 210, Nos. 89544 [1419] and 89377 [766], are variants of this form, probably intended for the larger seal, as the blade part is very long in proportion. No. 89544 [1419] is interesting from its close resemblance to the spear head figured by Nordenskiöld328 from the ancient “Onkilon” house at North Cape. No. 89377 [766] is a peculiar form, which was perhaps not general, as it has left no descendants among the modern harpoon. Instead of the bilateral blade barbs it has an irregular slot on each side, which evidently served to hold a blade of stone, and the single barb of the body is replaced by a cluster of four, which are neither in the plane of the blade nor at right angles to it, but between the two. No modern harpoon heads from Point Barrow have more than two barbs on the body. The next improvement was to bore the shaft socket instead of making it by inclosing a groove with thongs. This is shown in Fig. 211 (No. 89379 [795], from Utkiavwĭñ), which is just like No. 89544 [1419] except in this respect. The line grooves first appear at this stage of the development.

The next step was to obtain greater penetration by substituting a triangular blade of stone for the barbed bone point, with its breadth still in the plane of the body barb. This blade was either of slate (No. 89744 [969] from Nuwŭk) or of flint, as in Fig. 212 (No. 89748 [928], also from Nuwŭk). Both of these are whale harpoons, such as are sometimes used even at the present day.

Before the introduction of iron it was discovered that if the blade were inserted at right angles to the plane of the body barb the harpoon would have a surer hold, since the strain on the line would always draw it at right angles to the length of the wound cut by the blade. This is shown in Fig. 213 (No. 56620 [199], a walrus harpoon head from Utkiavwĭñ), which has the slate blade inserted in this position. Substituting a metal blade for the stone one gives us the modern toggle head, as already described. That the insertion of the stone blade preceded the rotation of the plane of the latter is, I think, conclusively shown by the whale harpoons329 already mentioned, in spite of the fact that we have a bone harpoon head in the collection, No. 89378 [1261], figured in Point Barrow report, which is exactly like No. 89379 [795], except that it has the blade at right angles to the plane of the body barb. This is, however, a newly made model in reindeer antler of the ancient harpoon, and was evidently made by a man so used to the modern pattern that he forgot this important distinction. The development of this spear head has been carried no further at Point Barrow. At one or two places, however, namely, at Cumberland Gulf in the east330 and at Sledge Island in the west (as shown in Mr. Nelson’s collection), they go a step further in making the head of the seal harpoon, body and blade, of one piece of iron. The shape, however, is the same as those with the ivory or bone body.

All of the Eskimo race, as far as I have any definite information, use toggle harpoon-heads. There are specimens in the National Museum from Greenland, Cumberland Gulf, the Anderson and Mackenzie region, and from the Alaskan coast from Point Barrow to Kadiak, as well as from St. Lawrence Island, which are all of essentially the same type, but slightly modified in different localities. The harpoon head in use at Smith Sound is of the same form as the walrus harpoon heads used at Point Barrow, but appears always to have the shaft socket made by a groove closed with thongs.331 In Danish Greenland, however, the body has an extra pair of bilateral barbs below the blade. The Greenlanders have, as it were, substituted a metal blade for the point only of the barbed blade portion of such a bone head as No. 89379 [795].332

Curiously enough, this form of the toggle head appears again in the Mackenzie and Anderson region, as shown by the extensive collections of Ross, MacFarlane, and others. In this region the metal blade itself is often cut into one or more pairs of bilateral barbs. At the Straits of Fury and Hecla, Parry found the harpoon head, with a body like the walrus harpoon heads at Point Barrow,333 but with the blade in the plane of the body barb. Most of the pictures scattered through the work represent the blade in this position, but Fig. 19 on the same plate has the blade at right angles to the barb, so that the older form may not be universal. At Cumberland Gulf the form of the body is considerably modified, though the blade is of the usual shape and in the ordinary position. The body is flattened at right angles to the usual direction, so that the thickness is much greater than the width. It always has two body barbs. On the western coast the harpoon heads are much less modified, though there is a tendency to increase the number of body barbs, at the same time ornamenting the body more elaborately as we go south from Bering Strait. Walrus harpoon heads with a single barb, hardly distinguishable from those used at Point Barrow, are in the collection from the Diomedes and all along the northern shore of Norton Sound, and one also from the mouth of the Kuskoquim. They are probably also used from Point Barrow to Kotzebue Sound. At St. Lawrence Island and on the Asiatic shore they are the common if not the universal form.334 The seal harpoon head (naulɐ) at Point Barrow appears always to have the body barb split at the tip into two, and this is the case rarely with the tu´kɐ. This form, which appears occasionally north of Norton Sound (Port Clarence, Cape Nome), appears to be more common south of this locality, where, however, a pattern with the barb divided into three points seems to be the prevailing form. I will now proceed to the description of the different forms of harpoon with which these toggle heads are used.

Throwing-harpoons are always thrown from the hand without a throwing-board or other assistance, and are of two sizes, one for the walrus and bearded seal, and one for the small seals. Both have a long shaft of wood to the tip of which is attached a heavy bone or ivory foreshaft, usually of greater diameter than the shaft and somewhat club-shaped. This serves the special purpose of giving weight to the head of the harpoon, so it can be darted with a sure aim. The native name of this part of the spear, ukumailuta (Greenlandic, okimailutaĸ, weight), indicates its design. This contrivance of weighting the head of the harpoon with a heavy foreshaft is peculiar to the western Eskimo. On all the eastern harpoons (see figures referred to above and the Museum collections) the foreshaft is a simple cap of bone no larger than the shaft the tip of which it protects. Between the foreshaft and the toggle-head is interposed the loose shaft (i´gimû), a slender rod of bone whose tip fits into the shaft socket of the head, while its butt fits loosely in a socket in the tip of the foreshaft. It is secured to the shaft by a thong just long enough to allow it to be unshipped from the foreshaft. This not only prevents the loose shaft from breaking under a lateral strain, but by its play facilitates unshipping the head. On these harpoons intended for throwing, this loose shaft is always short. This brings the weight of the foreshaft close to the head, while it leaves space enough for the head to penetrate beyond the barb.

The walrus harpoon varies in size, being adapted to the strength and stature of the owner. Of the six in our collection, the longest, when mounted for use, is 9 feet 6 inches long, and the shortest 5 feet 8 inches. The ordinary length appears to be about 7 feet. It has a long, heavy shaft (ipua) of wood, usually between 5 and 6 feet long and tapering from a diameter of 1½ inches at the head to about 1 inch at the butt. The head is not usually fastened directly to the line, but has a leader of double thong 1 to 2 feet long, with a becket at the end into which the main line is looped or hitched. At the other end of the line, which is about 30 feet long, is another becket to which is fastened a float consisting of a whole sealskin inflated. When the head is fitted on the tip of the loose shaft the line is brought down to the middle of the shaft and hooked by means of a little becket to an ivory peg (ki´lerbwĭñ) projecting from the side of the shaft. The eastern Eskimo have, in place of the simple becket, a neat little contrivance consisting of a plate of ivory lashed to the line with a large slot in it which hooks over the catch, but nothing of the sort was observed at Point Barrow.

The harpoon thus mounted is poised in the right hand with the forefinger resting against a curved ivory projection (ti´ka) and darted like a white man’s harpoon, the float and line being thrown overboard at the same time. When a walrus is struck the head slips off and toggles as already described; the line detaches itself from the catch, leaving the shaft free to float and be picked up. The float is now fastened to the walrus, and, like the shaft of the seal dart, both shows his whereabouts 224 and acts as a drag on his movements until he is “played” enough for the hunters to come up and dispatch him. This weapon is called u´nakpûk, “the great u´na or spear.” U´na (unâk, u´nañ) appears to be a generic term in Eskimo for harpoon, but at Point Barrow is now restricted to the harpoon used for stabbing seals as they come up to their breathing holes.

We collected six of these walrus harpoons complete and forty-two separate heads. Of these, No. 56770 [534], Fig. 214a, has the most typical shaft and loose shaft. The shaft is of spruce 71 inches long, roughly rounded, and tapering from a diameter of 1½ inches at the tip to 0.8 at the butt. The foreshaft is of white walrus ivory, 6.7 inches long, exclusive of the wedge-shaped tang which fits into a cleft in the tip of the shaft. It is somewhat club-shaped, being 1.6 inches in diameter at the tip and tapering to 1.3 just above the butt, which expands to the diameter of the shaft, and is separated from the tang by a square transverse shoulder. The shaft and foreshaft are fastened together by a whipping of broad seal thong, put on wet, one end passing through a hole in the foreshaft one-quarter inch from the shaft, and kept from slipping by a low transverse ridge on each side of the tang. In the tip of the foreshaft is a deep, round socket to receive the loose shaft, which is a tapering rod of walrus ivory 4.4 inches long, shouldered off at the butt, which is 0.7 inch in diameter, to a blunt, rounded tang 0.9 inch long. It fits loosely into the foreshaft up to the shoulder, and is secured by a piece of narrow seal thong which passes through a transverse hole one-half inch above the shoulder. The end is spliced to the standing part with double slits about 6 inches from the loose shaft, and the other end makes a couple of turns outside of the lashing on the shaft mentioned above and is secured with two half-hitches.

The line catch (ki´lerbwĭñ) is a little, blunt, backward-pointing hook of ivory inserted in the shaft 17 inches from the tip and projecting about one-third inch. Ten and one-fourth inches farther back and 90 225 degrees round the shaft from the line catch is the finger rest—a conical recurved piece of ivory 1 inch high, with a flat base, resting against the shaft and secured by a lashing of whalebone, which passes through two corresponding holes, one in the rest and one in the shaft. The head and line belonging to this harpoon are intended for hunting the bearded seal, and will be described below. No. 56772 [536], Fig. 214b, from Utkiavwĭñ, is fitted with fairly typical walrus gear. The head is of the typical form, 6 inches long, with a conoidal body of walrus ivory, ornamented with incised lines colored with red ocher, and a blade of steel secured by a whalebone rivet. The “leader,” which is about 15 inches long, is made by passing one end of a piece of stout walrus-hide thong about one-quarter inch wide through the line hole and doubling it with the head in the bight, so that one part is about 6 inches the longer. The two parts are stopped together about 2 inches from the head with a bit of sinew braid. The ends are joined and made into a becket, as follows: The longer end is doubled back for 7 inches and a slit cut through both parts about 2 inches from the end. The shorter end is passed through this slit, and a slit is cut 5 inches from the end of this, through which the loop of the other end is passed and all drawn taut. The whole joint is then tightly seized with sinew braid so as to leave a becket 3 inches and a free end 4 inches long. This becket is looped into an eye 1½ inches long at the end of the main line, made by doubling over 5 inches of the end and stopping the two parts firmly together with sinew braid. The line is of the hide of the bearded seal, about the same diameter as the leader, and 27 feet long. It is in two nearly equal parts, spliced together with double slits, firmly seized with sinew braid. There is a becket about 8 inches long at the other end of the line for attaching the float, made by doubling over the end and tying a carrick bend, the end of which is stopped back to the standing part with sinew braid. The becket to hook upon the line catch is a bit of sinew braid, fastened to the line 2½ feet from the head, as follows: One end being laid against the line it is doubled in a bight and the end is whipped down to the line by the other end, which makes five turns round them.

I will now consider the variations of the different parts of these harpoons in detail, beginning with the head. Our series is so large, containing in all forty-eight heads, besides some spare blades, that it probably gives a fair representation of the common variations. The longest of this series is 6 inches long and the shortest 3½, but by far the greater number are from 4½ to 5 inches long. Their proportions are usually about as in the types figured, but the long head just figured (No. 56772 [534]) is also unusually slender. Sheet brass is the commonest material for the blade (thirty blades are of this material), though iron or steel is sometimes used, and rarely, at present, slate. There is one slate-bladed head in the series (No. 56620 [199]) figured above, and four blades for such heads. The blade is commonly of the shape of the 226 type figured, triangular with curved edges, varying from a rather long triangle like the slate blade just mentioned to a rather short one with very strongly curved edges like Fig. 215a (No. 89750 [1038]), which is peculiar as the only walrus harpoon head with a body of reindeer antler. It also has an iron blade and a rivet of iron, not seldom with rounded basal angles so as to be almost heart-shaped, like Fig. 215b (No. 56621 [283]). A less common shape of blade is lanceolate, with the base cut off square as in Fig. 216a (No. 89764 [940]). Only eight blades out of the series are of this shape. A still more peculiar shape of blade, of which we saw only one specimen, is shown in Fig. 216b (No. 89790 [943]). This is made of brass. It was perhaps meant for an imitation of the barbed blades used at the Mackenzie, of which I have already spoken.

The blade, when of metal, is generally fastened in with a single rivet. One only out of the whole number has two rivets, and three are simply wedged into the blade slit. The slate blades appear never to have been riveted; Nordenskiöld, however, figures a walrus harpoon from Port Clarence335 with a jade blade riveted in. The rivet is generally made of whalebone, but other materials are sometimes used. For instance, in the series collected two have rivets of iron, two of wood, and five of rawhide. The body is generally made of white walrus ivory, (five of those collected are of hard bone, and one already mentioned and figured, No. 89750 [1038], Fig. 215a, is of reindeer antler), and the hexagonal shape, often with rounded edges, and the line grooves continued to the tip, as in Fig. 217a, No. 89757 [947], appears to be the commonest. Three out of the forty-eight have four-sided bodies. It is unusual for the body barb to be bifurcated, as is common farther south. 227 Only three out of the forty-eight show this peculiarity, of which No. 56613 [53], Fig. 217b, is an example.

The specimens figured show the different styles of ornamentation, which always consist of incised patterns colored with red ocher or rarely with soot. These never represent natural objects, but are always conventional patterns, generally a single or double border on two or more faces with short oblique cross-lines and branches. Harpoon heads at Point Barrow are probably never ornamented with the “circles and dots,” so common on other implements and on the harpoons of the southern Eskimo.

Twenty-eight of the heads still have the leaders attached to them. The object of this short line is to enable the hunter to readily detach a broken head and put on a fresh one without going to the trouble of undoing a splice, which must be made strong to keep the head from separating from the line. It is made of a stout piece of rawhide thong, the skin of the walrus or bearded seal, about one-third inch in diameter, and usually from 2 to 3 feet long. It is always passed through the line hole, as in the specimen described, and the ends are made into a becket for attaching the line, with an end left to serve as a handle for pulling the two beckets apart when the main line ends in a becket. Occasionally (two are made this way) the longer end is simply doubled in a bight, and the three parts are then seized together with sinew braid, but it is generally made with a splice, the details of which differ slightly on the different leaders.

The commonest method is that already described. When the longer end is doubled over, a slit is cut through both parts close to the end of this through which the shorter end is passed. A slit is then cut a few inches from the tip of this part, the bight of the becket passed through this slit and all drawn taut. This makes a very strong splice. Fourteen beckets are spliced in this way. A variation of this splice has a slit only through the end part of the longer end, the shorter end being passed through and slit as before. In one becket the standing part of the longer end is passed through the slit of the end part before going through the line hole, while the rest of the becket is made as before. A reversed splice is found on three of the leaders, which is made as follows: When the long end is doubled over, the short end is slit as usual and the longer end passed through this and slit close to the tip. Through this slit is passed the head and all drawn taut. The splice is always firmly seized with sinew braid. The main line, which serves to attach the head to the float, is always made of stout thong, preferably the skin of the bearded seal (very fine lines are sometimes made of beluga skin), about one-third inch square, and, when properly made, trimmed off on the edges so as to be almost round. It is about 10 yards long. It is fastened into the becket of the leader with a becket hitch tied upside down (No. 56771 [535], Fig. 218), or by means of a small becket, made either as on the specimen described (No. 56770 [536], Fig. 219), or spliced with double slits. The long becket at the other end for attaching 229 the float is made either by tying a carrick bend with the end stopped back to the standing part (Fig. 220, No. 56767 [531]), or by splicing (Fig. 221, No. 56769).

The loose shaft varies very little in shape, though it is sometimes rounded off at the butt without a shoulder, but the line which secures this to the foreshaft is put on differently on each of the six spears. Five of them have the end simply passed through the hole in the loose shaft and spliced to the standing part, but two (the type figured and No. 56768 [532]) have the other end carried down and hitched round the tip of the shaft; another has it passed through a hole in the foreshaft, taken 1½ turns round this and knotted (No. 56771 [535]); another has a loop as long as the foreshaft with the short end passed under the first turn of the shaft lashing before it is spliced, and the long end secured as on the first mentioned; and the fifth has the end passed through a hole in the foreshaft and carried down and wrapped round the shaft lashing. The sixth has one end passed through a hole in the smallest part of the foreshaft and knotted at the end, the other end carried up through the hole in the loose shaft and down to a second hole in the foreshaft close to the first, then up through the loose shaft, and down through the first hole, and tucked under the two parts on the other side.

The foreshaft is made of walrus ivory or the hard bone of the walrus jaw and varies little in form and dimensions. It is sometimes ornamented by carving, as in No. 56772 [536], or by incised patterns, as in Fig. 222, No. 56538 [98], and generally has one or two deep longitudinal notches in the thickest part, in which the lines can be drawn snugly down. It usually is joined to the shaft by a stout, wedge-shaped tang, which fits into a corresponding cleft in the shaft, and is secured by wooden treenails and a wrapping of seal thong or sinew braid, sometimes made more secure by passing 230 one end through holes in the foreshaft. No. 56768 [532] is peculiar in having the tang on the shaft and the corresponding cleft in the foreshaft. The shaft itself varies little in shape and proportions, and at the present day is sometimes made of ash or other hard wood obtained from the ships. The line catch is generally a little hook of ivory or hard bone like the one described, but two specimens have small screws fastened into the shaft to serve this purpose. The finger rest is ordinarily of the same shape as on the type and fastened on in the same way, but No. 56771 [535] has this made of a knob of ivory elaborately carved into a seal’s head. The eyes are represented by round bits of ivory with pupils drilled in them inlaid in the head. This is evidently the knob of a seal drag (see below) as the longitudinal perforation from chin to nape now serves no purpose. It is fastened on by a lashing of whalebone, which runs round the shaft and through a transverse hole in the knob.

Harpoons closely resembling these in type are used by the Eskimo of western North America wherever they habitually hunt the walrus. At many places this heavy spear is armed at the butt with a long sharp pick of ivory like the smaller seal spear. Two of these large harpoons appear to be rigged especially for the pursuit of the bearded seal, as they have heads which are of precisely the same shape and material as the small seal harpoons in the collection. Both these heads have lanceolate iron blades, conoidal antler bodies with double barbs, and are more slender than the walrus harpoon heads. No. 56770 [534], Fig. 219, has a head 4 inches long and 0.7 broad at the widest part, and fastened to a very long line (12 fathoms long) without a leader, the end being simply passed through the line hole and seized down to the standing part with sinew braid. This is the method of attaching the head of the small seal harpoons. This line is so long that it may have been held in the boat and not attached to a float. No. 56768 [532], however, has a leader with a becket of the ordinary style. Fig. 223, No. 56611 [89], is a head similar to those just described, and probably, from its size, intended for large seals. It is highly ornamented with the usual reddened incised pattern.

The throwing harpoon for small seals is an exact copy in miniature of the walrus harpoon, with the addition of a long bayonet-shaped pick of ivory at the butt. The line, however, is upwards of 30 yards long, and the end never leaves the hand. The line is hitched round the shaft back of the line catch, which now only serves to keep the line from slipping forward, as the shaft is never detached from the line. This harpoon is used exclusively 231 for retrieving seals that have been shot in open holes or leads of water within darting distance from the edge of the solid ice, and is thrown precisely as the walrus harpoon is, except that the end of the line is held in the left hand. In traveling over the ice the line with the head attached is folded in long hanks and slung on the gun case at the back. The rest of the weapon is carried in the hand and serves as a staff in walking and climbing among the ice, where the sharp pick is useful to prevent slipping and to try doubtful ice, and also enables the hunter to break away thin ice at the edge of the hole, so as to draw his game up to the solid floe. It can also serve as a bayonet in case of necessity. This peculiar form of harpoon is confined to the coast from Point Barrow to Bering Strait, the only region where the seal is hunted with the rifle in the small open holes of water.336

Since my note in the Naturalist was written, I have learned from Mr. Henry Balfour, of the museum at Oxford, that their collection contains two or three specimens of this very pattern of harpoon, undoubtedly collected by some of the officers of the Blossom. Consequently, my theory that the retrieving harpoon was a modern invention, due to the introduction of firearms, becomes untenable, as the Blossom visited this region before firearms were known to the Eskimo. It was probably originally intended for the capture of seals “hauled out” on the ice in the early summer. There is no doubt, however, that it is at the present day used for nothing but retrieving.

Though this weapon was universally used at Point Barrow, we happened to obtain only two specimens, possibly because the natives thought them too necessary an implement to part with lightly. No. 89907 [1695], Figs. 224, 225, has a new shaft, etc., but was used several times by the maker before it was offered for sale. Such a retrieving harpoon is called naúlĭgɐ. The shaft (ipúa) is of ash, 4 feet 5 inches long and 1 inch in diameter, tapering very slightly to each end. The ice pick (túu) of walrus ivory, 14 inches long and 1 inch wide, has a round tang fitting into a hole in the butt of the shaft. Close to the shaft a small hole is drilled in one edge of the pick, and through this is passed a bit of seal thong, the ends of which are laid along the shaft and neatly whipped down with sinew braid, with the end wedged into a slit in the wood. 232 The foreshaft (ukumailuta) is of walrus ivory, 4½ inches long and 1½ inches in diameter at the thickest part, and secured to the shaft by a whipping (nĭ´mxa) of seal thong. The loose shaft (ígimû) is also of ivory and 2 inches long and secured by a thong (ĭpíuta) spliced into a loop through the hole at the butt, as previously described. The end is hitched round the tip of the shaft with a marling hitch, followed by a clove hitch below the whipping. The ivory finger rest (ti´ka) is fastened on with a lashing of whip cord (white man’s) passing round the shaft. The line catch (ki´lerbwĭñ), which was of ivory and shaped like those on the walrus harpoons, has been lost in transportation. The head differs only in size from those just described as intended for the bearded seal, except in having a hexagonal body. It is 3.3 inches long and has a blade of iron fastened into a body of walrus ivory with a single wooden rivet. While there is no detachable leader, the head is attached by a separate piece of the same material to the line (tûkăksia), which is 86 feet 10 inches long and made of a single piece of fine seal thong about one-eighth inch thick. This shorter piece is about 27 inches long and is passed through the line hole and doubled so that one part is a little the longer. It is fastened strongly to the end of the line by a complicated splice made as follows: A slit is cut in the end of the main line through which are passed both ends of the short line. The longer part is then slit about 2 inches from the end and the shorter part passed through the slit, and a slit cut close to the end of it, through which the longer end is passed. The whole is then drawn taut and the longer end clove hitched round the main line.

No. 89908 [1058] is one of these spears rigged ready for darting. The line is secured at about the middle of the shaft with a couple of marling hitches. This specimen, except the head, is new and was rather carelessly made for the market. It has neither line catch nor finger rest. The 233 foreshaft and ice pick are lashed in with sinew braid, which is first knotted round the tip of the shaft and then hitched round with a series of left-handed soldier’s hitches. The end of the thong which holds the loose shaft is passed through the hole in it and knotted and the other end hitched into the pulley at the smallest part of the foreshaft. The head is like that of the preceding, but has a conoidal body of reindeer antler, a common material for seal-harpoon heads, and the line, which is of stout sinew braid 43 feet long, is attached to it simply by passing the end through the line hole and tying it with a clove hitch to the standing part 9½ inches from the head. This spear is about the same size as the preceding. These weapons are all of the same general pattern, but vary in length according to the height of the owner. The heads for these harpoons, as well as for the other form of seal harpoon, are usually about 3 inches long, and, as a rule, have lanceolate blades. The body is generally conoidal, often made of reindeer antler, and always, apparently, with a double barb. It is generally plain, but sometimes ornamented like the walrus-harpoon heads.

No. 89784 [1008] was made by Ilû´bw’ga, the Nunatañmeun, when thinking of coming to winter at Utkiavwĭñ. He had had no experience in sealing, having apparently spent all his winters on the rivers inland, and this harpoon head seems to have been condemned as unsatisfactory by his new friends at Utkiavwĭñ. It looks like a very tolerable naula, but is unusually small, being only 2½ inches long.

We saw only one stone blade for a seal harpoon, No. 89623 [1418], Fig. 226. This is of light olive green jade, and triangular, with peculiarly dull edges and point. Each face is concaved, and there is a hole for a rivet. (Compare the jade-bladed harpoon figured by Nordenskiöld and referred to above.) It is 2 inches long and 0.7 inch wide at the base. It appears to have been kept as an amulet. The other form of seal harpoon comes properly under the next head.

THRUSTING WEAPONS.

Harpoons.—

For the capture of seals as they come up for air to their breathing holes or cracks in the ice a harpoon is used which has a short wooden shaft, armed, as before, with an ice pick and a long, slender, loose shaft suited for thrusting down through 234 the small breathing hole. It carries a núalɐ like the other harpoon, but has only a short line, the end of which is made fast permanently to the shaft. Such harpoons are used by all Eskimo wherever they are in the habit of watching for seals at their breathing holes. The slender part of the shaft, however, is not always loose.337 The foreshaft is simply a stout ferrule for the end of the shaft. These weapons are in general use at Point Barrow and are very neatly made.

We obtained two specimens, of which No. 89910 [1694], Fig. 227, will serve as the type. The total length of this spear when rigged for use is 5 feet 3 inches. The shaft is of spruce, 20½ inches long and 1.1 inches in the middle, tapering to 0.9 at the ends. At the butt is inserted, as before, an ivory ice pick (túu) of the form already described, 13¾ inches long and lashed in with sinew braid. The foreshaft (kátû) is of walrus ivory, nearly cylindrical, 5¾ inches long and 0.9 inch in diameter, shouldered at the butt and fitted into the tip of the shaft with a round tang. The latter is very neatly whipped with a narrow strip of white whalebone, which makes eleven turns and has the end of the last turn forced into a slit in the wood and wedged with a round wooden peg. Under this whipping is the bill of a tern as a charm for good luck. (As the boy who pointed this out to me said, “Lots of seals.”)

The loose shaft (ígimû) is of bone, whale’s rib or jaw, and has two transverse holes above the shoulder to receive the end of the assembling line (sábromia), which not only holds the loose shaft in place, but also connects the other parts of the shaft so that in case the wood breaks the pieces will not be dropped. It is a long piece of seal thong, of which one end makes a turn round the loose shaft between the holes; the other end is passed through the lower hole, then through the upper and carried down to the tip of the shaft, where it is hitched just below the whalebone whipping, as follows: three turns are made round the shaft, the first over the standing part, the second under, and the third over it; the end then is passed under 3, over 2, and under 1 (Fig. 228), and all drawn taut; it then runs down the shaft almost to the butt-lashing and is secured with the same hitch, and the end is whipped around the butt of the ice pick with five turns. The head (naúlɐ) is of the ordinary pattern, 2.8 inches long, with a copper blade and antler body. The line (túkăktĭn) is a single piece of seal thong 9 feet long, and is fastened to the head without a leader, by simply passing the end through the line-hole, doubling it over and stopping it to the standing part so as to make a becket 21 inches long. The other end is made fast round the shaft and assembling line just back of the middle, as follows: An eye is made at the end of the line, by cutting a slit close to the tip and pushing a bight of the line through this. The end then makes a turn round the shaft, and the other end, with the head, is passed through this eye and drawn taut. When mounted for use, the head is fitted on the tip of the loose shaft as usual 235 and the line brought down to the tip of the shaft and made fast by two or three round turns with a bight tucked under, so that it can be easily slipped. It is also confined to the loose shaft by the end of the assembling line, which makes one or two loose turns round it. The slack of the line is doubled into “fakes” and tucked between the shaft and assembling line.

The other specimen is of the same pattern, but slightly different proportions, having a shaft 18½ inches long and a pick 19 inches long. The loose shaft is of ivory, and there are lashings of white whalebone at each end of the shaft. The assembling line is hitched round the foreshaft as well as round the two ends of the shaft, and simply knotted round the pick. The line is of very stout sinew braid, and has an eye neatly spliced in the end for looping it round the shaft. Fig. 229, No. 89551 [1082], is a model of one of these harpoons, made for sale. It is 16¼ inches long, and correct in all its parts, except that the whole head is of ivory, even to having the ends of the shaft whipped with light-colored whalebone. The shaft is of pine and the rest of walrus ivory, with lines of sinew braid. We also collected four loose shafts for such harpoons. One of these, No. 89489 [802], is of whale’s bone and unusually short, only 14 inches long. It perhaps belonged to a lad’s spear. The other three are long, 20 to 25 inches, and are made of narwhal ivory, as is shown by the spiral twist in the grain.

The harpoon used for the whale fishery is a heavy, bulky weapon, which is never thrown, but thrust with both hands as the whale rises under the bows of the umiak. When not in use it rests in a large ivory crotch, shaped like a rowlock, in the bow. The shaft is of wood and 8 or 9 feet long, and there is no loose shaft, the bone or ivory foreshaft being tapered off to a slender point of such a shape that the head easily unships. This foreshaft is not weighted, as in the walrus harpoon, since this is not necessary in a weapon which does not leave the hand. The harpoon line is fitted with two inflated sealskin floats.

No complete, genuine whaling harpoons were ever offered for sale, but a man at Nuwûk made a very excellent reduced model about two-thirds the usual size (No. 89909 [1023], Fig. 230), which will serve as the type of this weapon 236 (a´jyûñ). This is 6 feet 11 inches in length when rigged for use. The shaft is of pine, 5 feet 8½ inches long, with its greatest diameter (1½ inches) well forward of the middle and tapered more toward the butt than toward the tip, which is chamfered off on one side to fit the butt of the foreshaft (igimû), and shouldered to keep the lashing in place. The foreshaft is of whale’s bone, 11½ inches long, three-sided with one edge rounded off, and tapers from a diameter of 1 inch to a tapering rounded point 1½ inches long, and slightly curved away from the flat face of the foreshaft. It will easily be seen that the shape of this tip facilitates the unshipping of the head. The butt is chamfered off on the flat face to fit the chamfer of the shaft, and the whole foreshaft is slightly curved in the same direction as the tip. It is secured to the shaft by a stout whipping of seal thong. The head is 7 inches long, and has a body of walrus ivory, which is ornamented with incised patterns colored red with ocher, and a blade of dark reddish brown jasper, neatly flaked. This blade is not unlike a large arrow head, being triangular, with curved edges, and a short, broad tang imbedded in the tip of the body, which is seized round with sinew braid. The body is unusually long and slender and is four sided, with a single long, sharp barb, keeled on the outer face. The line hole and line grooves are in the usual position, but the peculiarity of the head is that the blade is inserted with its breadth in the plane of the body barb. In other words, this head has not reached the last stage in the development of the toggle-head. The line is of stout thong (the skin of the bearded seal) and about 8½ feet long. It is passed 237 through the line hole, doubled in the middle, the two parts are firmly stopped together with sinew in four places, and in the ends are cut long slits for looping on the floats. When the head is fitted on the foreshaft the line is secured to the flat face of the foreshaft by a little stop made of a single strand of sinew, easily broken. About 28 inches from the tip of the shaft the line is doubled forward and the bight stopped to the shaft with six turns of seal thong, so that the line is held in place and yet can be easily detached by a straight pull. The ends are then doubled back over the lashing and stopped to the shaft with a single thread of sinew.

Fig. 231 is a toy model of the whale harpoon, No. 56562 [233], 18½ inches long, made of pine and ivory, and shows the manner of attaching the floats, which are little blocks of spruce roughly whittled into the shape of inflated sealskins. A piece of seal thong 13½ inches long has its ends looped round the neck of the floats and the harpoon-line is looped into a slit in the middle of this line.

We collected thirteen heads for such harpoons, which have been in actual use, of which two have flint blades like the one described, two have brass blades, and the rest either blades of slate or else no blades. The flint blades are either triangular like the one described or lanceolate and are about 3 inches long exclusive of the tang. The three separate flint blades which we obtained (Fig. 232, No. 56708 [114], from Utkiavwĭñ, is one of these, made of black flint) are about 1 inch shorter and were perhaps intended for walrus harpoons, though we saw none of these with flint blades. They are all newly made for the market.

The slate blades of which we collected eleven, some old and some new, besides those in the heads, are all triangular, with curved edges, as in Fig. 233 (No. 56709 [139] from Utkiavwĭñ, made of soft purple slate), except one new one, No. 56697a [188a], which has the corners cut off so as to give it a rhomboidal shape. The corners are sometimes rounded off so that they are nearly heart-shaped. These blades are usually about 2¾ inches long and 2 broad; two unusually large ones are 3 inches long and nearly 2¼ broad, and one small one 2.1 by 1.6 inches, and are simply wedged into the blade slit without a rivet. The brass blades are of the same shape.

The common material for the body seems to have been rather coarse whale’s bone, from the rib or jaw. Only two out of the thirteen have ivory bodies, and these are both of the newer brass-bladed pattern. The body is very long and slender, being usually about 8 or 8½ inches long (one is 9¼ inches long) and not over 1½ inches broad at the widest part. 238 It is always cut off very obliquely at the base, and the part in front of the line hole is contracted to a sort of shank, as in Fig. 234 (No. 89747 [1044]), a head with slate blade (broken) and bone body. This represents a very common form in which the shank is four-sided, while back of the middle the outer face of the barb rises into a ridge, making this part of the body five-sided. The edges of the shank are sometimes rounded off so as to make this part elliptical in section, and all the edges of the body except the keel, on the outer face of the barb, are frequently rounded off as in Fig. 235a, No. 89745 [1044], which has a slate blade wedged into the bone body with a bit of old cloth and a wooden wedge. Fig. 235b, No. 56602 [157], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a head of the same shape, but has a brass blade and a body of ivory. This blade is wedged in with deer hair, but the other brass-bladed harpoon, No. 56601 [137], has a single rivet of whalebone.

The blade slit, and consequently the blade, is always in the plane of the barb, which position, as I have said before, corresponds to the last step but one in the development of the harpoon-head. When the blade is of flint and inserted with a tang, the tip of the body is always whipped with sinew braid, as in Fig. 212, No. 89748 [928], from Nuwŭk. This specimen is remarkable as being the only one in the series with a double point to the barb. These bodies are sometimes ornamented with incised lines, in conventional patterns, as shown in the different figures. A short incised mark somewhat resembling an arrow (see above, Fig. 234, No. 89747 [1044]) may have some significance as it is repeated on several of the heads. Harpoon-heads of this peculiar pattern are to be found in the Museum collection from other localities. As we should naturally expect, they have been found at the Diomede Islands, St. Lawrence Island, and Plover Bay. It is very interesting, however, to find a specimen of precisely the same type from Greenland, where the modern harpoons are so different from those used in the west.

That the line connecting the head with the float line is not always so 239 long in proportion as represented on the two models is shown by Fig. 236, No. 89744 [969], the only specimen obtained with any part of the line attached. A piece of stout walrus-hide thong 2 feet long is passed through the line-hole and doubled in two equal parts, which are firmly stopped together with sinew about 2 inches from the head. Another piece of similar thong 4 feet 2 inches long is also doubled into two equal parts and the ends firmly spliced to those of the short piece thus: The two ends of the long piece are slit and one end of the short piece passed through each slit. One of these ends is then slit and through it are passed the other end of the short piece and the bight of the long piece, and all is drawn taut and securely seized with sinew. The becket thus formed was probably looped directly into the bight of the float line.

The foreshaft is much larger than that of the model, though of the same shape. No. 56537 [97], Fig. 237, from Utkiavwĭñ, is of walrus-ivory and 15.8 inches long with a diameter of 1½ inches at the butt. The oblong slot at the beginning of the chamfer is to receive the end of the lashing which secured this to the shaft. This form of foreshaft is very well adapted to insure the unshipping of the toggle-head, but lacks the special advantage of the loose-shaft, namely, that under a violent lateral strain it unships without breaking. The question at once suggests itself, why was not the improvement that is used on all the other harpoons applied to this one? In my opinion, the reason for this is the same as for retaining the form of toggle-head, which, as I have shown, is of an ancient pattern.

That is to say, the modern whale harpoon is the same pattern that was once used for all harpoons, preserved for superstitious reasons. It is a well known fact, that among many peoples implements, ideas, and language have been preserved in connection with religious 240 ceremonies long after they have gone out of use in every-day life. Now, the whale fishing at Port Barrow, in many respects the most important undertaking in the life of the natives, is so surrounded by superstitious observances, ceremonies to be performed, and other things of the same nature as really to assume a distinctly religious character. Hence, we should naturally expect to find the implements used in it more or less archaic in form. That this is the case in regard to the toggle-head I think I have already shown. It seems to me equally evident that this foreshaft, which contains the loose shaft and foreshaft, undifferentiated, is also the older form.

Why the development of the harpoon was arrested at this particular stage is not so easily determined. A natural supposition would be that this was the form of harpoon used by their ancestors when they first began to be successful whalemen.

That they connect the idea of good luck with these ancient stone harpoons is shown by what occurred at Point Barrow in 1883. Of late years they have obtained from the ships many ordinary “whale-irons,” and some people at least had got into the habit of using them.

Now, the bad luck of the season of 1882, when the boats of both villages together caught only one small whale, was attributed to the use of these “irons,” and it was decided by the elders that the first harpoon struck into the whale must be a stone-bladed one such as their forefathers used when they killed many whales.

In this connection, it is interesting to note a parallel custom observed at Point Hope. Hooper338 says that at this place the beluga must always be struck with a flint spear, even if it has been killed by a rifle shot.

Lances.—

As I have said on a preceding page, some of the natives now use bomb-guns for dispatching the harpooned whale, and all the whaleboats are provided with steel whale lances obtained from the ships. In former times they used a large and powerful lance with a broad flint head. They seem to have continued the use of this weapon, probably for the same reasons that led them to retain the ancient harpoon for whaling until they obtained their present supply of steel lances, as we found no signs of iron whale lances of native manufacture, such as are found in Greenland and elsewhere. We obtained nine heads for stone lances (kaluwiɐ) and one complete lance, a very fine specimen (No. 56765 [537], Fig. 238), which was brought down as a present from Nuwŭk. The broad, sharp head is of light gray flint, mounted on a shaft of spruce 12 feet 6 inches long. It has a broad, stout tang inserted in the cleft end of the 241 shaft. The shaft is rhomboidal in section with rounded edges, and tapers from a breadth of 2 inches and a thickness of 1 at the tip to a butt of 0.7 inch broad and 1 thick. The tip of the shaft has a whipping of sinew-braid 1¾ inches deep, “kackled” down on both edges, one end of the twine on each edge, so that the hitch made by one end crosses the round turn of the other, making in all twenty-six turns. The shaft has been painted red for 1½ inches below the whipping.

No. 89596 [1032] is the head and 5 inches of the shaft of a similar lance. The head is of black flint, and the sinew-braid forms a simple whipping. The remaining heads are all unmounted. I have figured several of them to show the variations of this now obsolete weapon. Fig. 239, No. 56677 [49], from Utkiavwĭñ, is of gray flint chipped in large flakes. The total length is 6.9 inches. The small lugs on the edges of the tang are to keep it from slipping out of the whipping. No. 56679 [239], also from Utkiavwĭñ, is of black flint and broader than the preceding. Its length is 6.3 inches. No. 56680 [394], from the same village, is of light bluish gray flint and very broad. It is 5.4 inches long. No. 56681 [5], from Utkiavwĭñ, is another broad 242 head of black flint, 6 inches long. Fig. 240a, No. 89597 [1034], from Nuwŭk, is of black flint, and unusually long in proportion, running into the tang with less shoulder than usual. Much of the original surface is left untouched on one face. This is probably very old. No. 89598 [1361] is a head of similar shape of dark gray flint from Sidaru. It is 6 inches long. Fig. 240b, No. 89599 [1373], from the same place and of similar material, is shaped very like the head of a steel lance. It is 5 inches long. Fig. 240c, No. 89600 [1069], from Utkiavwĭñ, is still broader in proportion and almost heart-shaped. It is of bluish gray flint and 4.8 inches long. These heads probably represent most of the different forms in use. Only two types are to be recognized among them, the long-pointed oval with a short tang, and the broad leaf-shaped head with a rather long tang, which appears to be the commoner form.

We obtained one newly made lance of a pattern similar to the above, but smaller, which was said to be a model of the weapon used in attacking the polar bear before the introduction of firearms. The name, pû´nnû, is curiously like the name panna given by Dr. Simpson and Capt. Parry to the large double-edged knife. The specimen, No. 89895 [1230], Fig. 241, came from Utkiavwĭñ. It has a head of gray flint 3½ inches long, exclusive of the tang, roughly convex on one face, but flat and merely beveled at the edges on the other. The edges are finely serrate. The shaft is of spruce, 6 feet 8 inches long, rounded and somewhat flattened at the tip, which is 1 inch wide and tapering to a diameter of 0.7 at the butt, and is painted red with ocher. The tip has a slight shoulder to keep the whipping in place. The tang is wedged in with bits of leather and secured by a close whipping of sinew braid 1¼ inches deep. Fig. 242, No. 89611 [1034], from Nuwŭk, was probably the head of such a lance, although it is somewhat narrower and slightly shorter. Its total length is 3.4 inches. The other two large lance-heads, No. 56708a [114a] and No. 56708b [114b], are both new, but were probably meant for the bear lance. They are of gray flint, 3½ inches long, and have the edges regularly serrate.

One form of lance is still in general use. It has a sharp metal head, and a light wooden shaft about 6 feet long. It is used in the kaiak for stabbing deer swimming in the water, after the manner frequently noticed among other Eskimo.339 A pair of these spears is carried in beckets on the forward deck of the kaiak. On approaching a deer one of them is slipped out of the becket and laid on the deck, with the butt resting on the combing of 243 the cockpit. The hunter then paddles rapidly up alongside of the deer, grasps the lance near the butt, as he would a dagger, and stabs the animal with a quick downward thrust. This spear is called kă´pun, which in the Point Barrow dialect exactly corresponds to the Greenlandic word kapût, which is applied to the long-bladed spear or long knife used for dispatching a harpooned seal.340 The word kă´pun means simply “an instrument for stabbing.”

No. 73183 [524], Figs. 243a, 243b (head enlarged), will serve as a type of this weapon, of which we have two specimens. All that we saw were essentially like this. The head is iron, 4¾ inches long exclusive of the tang, and 1½ inches broad. The edges are narrowly beveled on both faces. The shaft is 6 feet 2 inches long, and tapers from a diameter of 0.8 inch about the middle to about one-half inch at each end. The tip is cleft to receive the tang of the head, and shouldered to keep the whipping from slipping off. The latter was of sinew braid and 2 inches deep. The shaft is painted with red ocher. The other has a shaft 6 feet 4 inches long, but otherwise resembles the preceding. The heads for these lances are not always made of iron. Copper, brass, etc., are sometimes used. No. 56699 [166] is one of a pair of neatly made copper lance heads. It is 5.9 inches long and 1½ wide, and ground down on each face to a sharp edge without a bevel, except just at the point. Before the introduction of iron these lances had stone heads, but were otherwise of the same shape. Fig. 244 represents the head and 6 inches of the shaft of one of these (No. 89900 [1157] from Nuwŭk). The shaft is new and rather carelessly made of a rough, knotty piece of spruce, and is 5 feet 5¾ inches long. The head is of black flint and 2 inches long, exclusive of the tang, and the tip of the shaft is whipped with a narrow strip of light-colored whalebone, the end of which is secured by passing it through a slit in the side of the shaft and wedging it into a crack on the opposite side. This is an old head newly mounted for the market, and the head is wedged in with a bit of blue flannel.

No. 89897 [1324], Fig. 245, from Utkiavwĭñ, on the other hand, is an old shaft 5 feet 7½ inches long, fitted with a new head, which is very broad, and shaped like the head of a bear lance. It is of variegated 244 jasper, brown and gray, and has a piece of white sealskin lapped over the cleft of the shaft at each side of the tang so that the edges of the two pieces almost meet in the middle. They are secured by a spaced whipping of sinew braid. This shaft, which is painted red, evidently had a broad head formerly, as it is expanded at the tip. No. 89896 [1324] is the mate to this, evidently made to match it. We also obtained one other flint-headed lance. The mate to No. 89900 [1157], No. 89898 [1157], has a head of dark gray slate 2.3 inches long. This spear appears to be wholly old, except the whipping of sinew braid. The shaft is of spruce, 5 feet 4¾ inches long, and painted red with ocher. We also collected three stone heads for such lances. Fig. 246, No. 38711 [148], from Utkiavwĭñ, shows the shape of the tang. It is of gray flint, and 3.7 inches long. No. 89610 [1154] is a beautiful lance head of polished olive green jade, 4.3 inches long. The hole in the tang is probably not intended for a rivet, as none of the lance heads which we saw were fastened in this way. It is more likely that it was perforated for attaching it to the belt as an amulet. We were told that this lance head was brought from the west. A large slate lance head found by Nordenskiöld341 in the old “Onkilon” house at North Cape is of precisely the same shape as these deer-lance heads, but from its size was probably intended for a whale lance.

THROWING WEAPONS.

The only throwing weapon which these people use is a small bolas, designed for catching birds on the wing. This consists of six or seven small ivory balls, each attached to a string about 30 inches long, the ends of which are fastened together to a tuft of feathers, which serves as a handle and perhaps directs the flight of the missile. When not in use the strings are shortened up, as in Fig. 247, No. 75969 [1793], for convenience in carrying and to keep them from tangling, by tying them into slip knots, as follows: All the strings being straightened out and laid parallel to each other, they are doubled in a bight, with the end under the standing part, the bight of the end passed through the preceding bight, which is drawn up close, and so on, usually five or six times, till the strings are sufficiently shortened. A pull on the two ends slips all these knots and the strings come out straight and untangled.

The bolas is carried knotted up in a pouch slung round the neck, a native frequently carrying several sets. When a flock of ducks is seen approaching, the handle is grasped in the right 245 hand, the balls in the left, and the strings are straightened out with a quick pull. Letting go with the left hand the balls are whirled round the head and let fly at the passing flock. The balls spread apart in flying through the air, so as to cover considerable space, like a charge of shot, and if they are stopped by striking a duck, the strings immediately wrap around him and hamper his flight so that he comes to the ground. The natives said that the balls flew with sufficient force to stun a duck or break his wing, but we never happened to see any taken except in the way just described. A duck is occasionally left with sufficient freedom of motion to escape with the bolas hanging to him. The weapon is effective up to 30 or 40 yards, but the natives often throw it to a longer distance, frequently missing their aim. It is universally employed, especially by those who have no guns, and a good many ducks are captured with it. In the spring, when the ducks are flying, the women and children hardly ever stir out of the house without one or more of these.

We brought home one specimen of this implement (kelauĭtau´tĭn), No. 75969 [1793], Fig. 248, which is new and has the balls rather carelessly made. The balls, which are six in number, are of walrus ivory, 1.6 to 1.8 inches long and 1 inch in diameter (except one which is flattened, 2 inches long and 1.3 wide; they are usually all of the same shape). Through the larger end is drilled a small hole, the ends of which are joined by a shallow groove running over the end, into which the ends of the strings are fastened by three half-hitches each. There is one string of sinew braid to each set of two balls, doubled in the middle so that all six parts are equal and about 28 inches long. They are fastened to the feather handle as follows: Nine wing feathers of the eider duck are laid side by side, butt to point, and doubled in the middle so that the quills and vanes stand up on all sides. The middle of each string is laid across the bight of the feathers, so that the six parts come out on all sides between the feathers. The latter are then lashed tightly together with a bit of sinew braid, by passing the end over the bend of the feathers and tying with the rest of the string round the feathers.

These weapons are generally very much like the specimen described, but vary somewhat in the shape and material of the balls, which are sometimes simply ovoid or spherical, and often made of single teeth of the walrus, instead of tusk ivory. Bone is also sometimes used. In former times, the astragalus bones of the reindeer, perforated through the ridge on one end were used for balls. No. 89490 [1342], is a pair of such bones tied together with a bit of thong, which appear to have been actually used. No. 89537 [1251] from Utkiavwĭñ is a very old ball, which is small (1.1 inches long) and unusually flat. It appears to have been kept as a relic.

There is very little information to be found concerning the extent of the region in which this implement is used, either in the Museum collections or in the writings of authors. A few points, however, have been made out with certainty. The bolas are unknown among all the Eskimo east of the Anderson River, and the only evidence that we have of their use at this point is an entry in the Museum catalogue, to which I have been unable to find a corresponding specimen. Dease and Simpson, in 1837, did not observe them till they reached Point Barrow.342 They were first noticed by Beechey at Kotzebue Sound in 1826.343 Mr. Nelson’s collections show that they are used from Point Barrow along the Alaskan coast, at least as far south as the Yukon delta, and on St. Lawrence Island, while for their use on the coast of Siberia as far as Cape North, we have the authority of Nordenskiöld,344 and the Krause Brothers.345

HUNTING IMPLEMENTS OTHER THAN WEAPONS.

Floats.—

I have already spoken of the floats (apotû´kpûñ) of inflated sealskin used in capturing the whale and walrus. We obtained one specimen, No. 73578 [538] Fig. 249. This is the whole skin, except the head, of a male rough seal (Phoca fœtida), with the hair out. The carcass was carefully removed without making any incision except round the neck and a few inches down the throat, and skinned to the very 247 toes, leaving the claws on. All natural or accidental apertures are carefully sewed up, except the genital opening, into which is inserted a ring of ivory, which serves as a mouthpiece for inflating the skin and is corked with a plug of wood. The cut in the throat is carefully sewed up, and the neck puckered together, and wrapped with seal thong into a slender shank about 1 inch long, leaving a flap of skin which is wrapped round a rod of bone 4 inches long and 1 in diameter, set across the shank, and wound with thong. This makes a handle for looping on the harpoon line.

All the floats used at Point Barrow are of the same general pattern as this, and are generally made of the skin of the rough seal, though skins of the harbor seal (P. vitulina) are sometimes used. One of these floats is attached to the walrus harpoon, but two are used in whaling.346 Five or six floats are carried in each boat, and are inflated before starting out. I have seen them used for seats during a halt on the ice, when the boat was being taken out to the “lead.” The use of these large floats is not peculiar to Point Barrow. They are employed by all Eskimo who pursue the larger marine mammals.

Flipper toggles.—

We collected two pairs of peculiar implements, in the shape of ivory whales about 5 inches long, with a perforation in the belly through which a large thong could be attached. We understood that they were to be fastened to the ends of a stout thong and used when a whale was killed to toggle his flippers together so as to keep them in place while towing him to the ice, by cutting holes in the flippers and passing the ivory through. We unfortunately never had an opportunity of verifying this story. Neither pair is new. Fig. 250a represents a pair of these implements (kă´gotĭñ) (No. 56580 [227]). They are of white walrus ivory. In the middle of each belly is excavated a deep, oblong cavity about three-fourths of an inch long and one-half wide, across the middle of which is a stout transverse bar for the attachment of the line. One is a “bow-head” whale (Balæna mysticetus), 4½ inches long, and the other evidently intended for a “California gray” (Rhachinectes glaucus). It has light blue glass beads inserted for eyes and is the same length as the other.

Fig. 250 (No. 56598 [407]) is a similar pair, which are both “bowheads” nearly 5 inches long. Both have cylindrical plugs of ivory inserted for eyes, and are made of a piece of ivory so old that the surface is a light chocolate color. The name, kăgotĭñ, means literally “a pair of toggles.”

Harpoon boxes (u´dlun or u´blun, literally “a nest.”)—

The slate harpoon blades already described were very apt to be lost or broken, so they always carried in the boat a supply of spare blades. These were kept in a small box carved out of a block of soft wood, in the shape of the animal to be pursued.

Fig. 251a represents one of these boxes (No. 56505 [138]) intended for spare blades for the whale harpoon. This is rather neatly carved from a single block of soft wood, apparently spruce, though it is very old and much weathered, in the shape of a “bowhead” whale, 9½ inches long. The ends of the flukes are broken short off, and show traces of having been mended with wooden pegs or dowels. The right eye is indicated by a simple incision, but a tiny bit of crystal is inlaid for the left. Two little bits of crystal are also inlaid in the middle of the back. The belly is flat and excavated into a deep triangular cavity, with its base just forward of the angle of the mouth and the apex at the “small.” It is beveled round the edge, with a shoulder at the base and apex, and is covered with a flat triangular piece of wood beveled on the under face to fit the edge of the cavity. About half of one side of the cover has been split off and mended on with two “stitches” of whalebone fiber. The cover is held on by three strings of seal thong passing through holes in each corner of the cover and secured by a 249 knot in the end of each string. They then pass through three corresponding holes in the bottom of the cavity, leaving outside of the back two ends 7 inches and one 15 long, which are tied together. The cover can be lifted wholly off and then drawn back into its place by pulling the string.

We collected seven such whale-harpoon boxes, usually about 9 to 9¾ inches long. Nearly all have bits of crystal, amber, or pyrite, inlaid for the eyes and in the middle of the back, and the cover is generally rigged in the way described. No. 56502 [198], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a 250 large whale, a foot long, and has the tail bent up, while the animal is usually represented as if lying still. It has good-sized sky-blue beads inlaid for the eyes.

Fig. 251b (No. 89733 [1161], from Nuwŭk) represents a small box 4⅓ inches long, probably older than the others, and the only one not carved into the shape of a whale. It is roughly egg-shaped and has no wooden cover to the cavity, which is covered with a piece of deerskin, held on by a string of seal thong wrapped three times around the body in a rough, deep groove, with the end tucked under. In this box are five slate blades for the whale harpoon.

We also collected two boxes for walrus harpoons made in the shape of the walrus, with ivory or bone tusks. No. 89732 [860], Fig. 251c, from Nuwŭk, is old, and 7 inches long, and has two oval bits of ivory, with holes bored to represent the pupils, inlaid for the eyes. There is no cover, but the cavity is filled with a number of slate blades, carefully packed in whalebone shavings. There is a little eyebolt of ivory at each end of the cavity. One end of a bit of sinew braid is tied to the anterior of these, and the other carried down through the hinder one, and then brought up and fastened round the body with a marling hitch. The other, No. 56489 [127], is new and rather roughly made, 5 inches long and painted all over with red ocher. It has a cover, but no strings.

No. 56501 [142], Fig. 251d, from Utkiavwĭñ, is for carrying harpoon blades for the chase of the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus), and is neatly carved into the shape of that animal. It is 7.4 inches long and has ivory eyes like the walrus box, No. 89732 [860]. The cover is fitted to the cavity like those of the whale boxes, but is held on by one string only, a piece of seal thong about 3 feet long passing through the middle of the cover and out at a hole on the left side, about one-fourth inch from the cavity. The box is filled with raveled rope-yarns. Fig. 251e (No. 89730 [981], from Utkiavwĭñ) is like this, but very large, 9.3 inches long. The cover is thick and a little larger than the cavity, beveled on the upper face and notched on each side to receive the string, which is a bit of sinew braid fastened to two little ivory hooks, one on each side of the body. It is fastened to the right hook, carried across and hooked around the left-hand one, then carried over and hooked round the other, and secured by tucking a bight of the end under the last part. The box contains several slate blades. We also collected one other large seal box (No. 89731 [859], from Nuwŭk), very roughly carved, and 9.8 inches long. The cover is fitted into the cavity and held on by a narrow strip of whalebone running across in a transverse groove in the cover and through a hole in each side of the box.

Nets (ku´bra).—

The smaller seals are captured in large-meshed nets of rawhide. We brought home one of these, No. 56756 [109], Figs 252a-252b (detail of mesh). This is a rectangular net, eighteen meshes long and twelve deep, netted of fine seal thong with the ordinary netting knot. The length of the mesh is 14 inches.

Such nets are set under the ice in winter, or in shoal water along the shore by means of stakes in summer. In the ordinary method of setting the net under the ice two small holes are cut through the ice the length of the net apart, and between them in the same straight line is cut a third large enough to permit a seal to be drawn up through it. A line with a plummet on the end is let down through one of the small holes, and is hooked through the middle hole, with a long slender pole of willow, often made of several pieces spliced together, with a small wooden hook on the 252 end. The line is then detached from the plummet and fastened to one upper corner of the net, and a second line is let down through the other small hole and made fast in the same way to the other upper corner. By pulling on these lines the net is drawn down through the middle and stretched like a curtain under the ice, while a line at the middle serves to haul it up again. The end lines are but loosely made fast to lumps of ice, so that when a seal strikes the net nothing hinders his wrapping it completely around him in his struggles to escape. When the hunter, who is usually watching his net, thinks the seal is sufficiently entangled he hauls him up through the large hole and sets the net again.

I had no opportunity of observing whether any weights or plummets were used to keep down the lower edge of the net. These nets are now universally employed, but one native spoke of a time “long ago” when there were no nets and they captured seals with the spear (u´nɐ) alone. The net was used in seal catching in Dr. Simpson’s time, though he makes but a casual reference to it,347 and Beechey found seal nets at Kotzebue Sound in 1826.348 The net is very generally used for sealing among the Eskimo of western America and in Siberia. We observed seal nets set with stakes along the shore of the sandspit at Plover Bay, and Nordenskiöld speaks of seal nets “set in summer among the ground ices along the shore,”349 and at open leads in the winter, but gives no description of the method of setting these nets beyond mentioning the “long pole which was used in setting the net,”350 as none of his party ever witnessed the seal fishery.351 I am informed by Mr. W. H. Dall that the winter nets in Norton Sound are not set under the ice as at Point Barrow, but with stakes in shoal water wherever there are open holes in the ice. “Ice nets” are spoken of as in use for sealing in Greenland, but I have been able to find no description of them. As they are not spoken of by either Egede or Crantz I am inclined to believe that they were introduced by the Europeans.352 Mr. L. M. Turner informs me that such is the case at Ungava Bay on the southern shore of Hudson Strait, where they use a very long net set under the ice very much as at Point Barrow. I can find no mention of the use of seal nets among any other of the eastern Eskimo.

It is well known that seals have a great deal of curiosity, and are easily attracted by any unusual sounds, especially if they are gentle and long-continued. It is therefore easy to entice them into the nets by making such noises, for instance, gentle whistling, rattling on the ice with the pick, and so forth. Two special implements are also used for this purpose. The first kind I have called:

Seal calls (adrigautĭn).—

This implement consists of three or four claws mounted on the end of a short wooden handle, and is used to make a gentle noise by scratching on the ice. It is a common implement, though I never happened to see it in use. We obtained six specimens, of which No. 56555 [90] Fig. 253a, is the type. It is 11½ inches long. The round handle is of ash, the claws are those of the bearded seal, secured by a lashing of sinew braid, with the end brought down on the under side to a little blunt, backward-pointing hook of ivory, set into the wood about 1 inch from the base of the arms.

Fig. 253b (No. 56557 [93] from Utkiavwĭñ is 9½ inches long and has four prongs. The haft is of spruce, and instead of an ivory hook there is a round-headed stud of the same material, which is driven wholly through the wood, having the point cut off flush with the upper surface. It has a lanyard of seal twine knotted into the hole in the haft. The other two specimens of this pattern, Nos. 56556 [100] and 56558 [51] have each three claws, and hafts of soft wood, painted with red ocher, with lanyards, and are respectively 10.4 and 10.7 inches long. One has an ivory hook, but the other in place of this has a small iron nail, and is ornamented with a medium-sized sky-blue glass bead inlaid in the back. The other two are both new and small, being respectively 7.5 and 7.6 inches long. The hafts are made of reindeer antler and have only two prongs. No. 89467 [1312] from Utkiavwĭñ, has the haft notched on each side, and has an irregular stud of bone for securing the lashing.

No. 89468 [1354], Fig. 253c, from Utkiavwĭñ, has no stud and the claws are simply held on by a slight lashing of twisted sinew. Both of these were made for the market, but may be models of a form once used. There are two old seal calls in the Museum from near St. Michaels, made of a piece of reindeer antler, apparently the spreading brow antler, in which the sharp points of the antler take the place of claws. 254 The use of this implement, as shown by Mr. Nelson’s collection, extends or extended from Point Barrow to Norton Sound. He collected specimens from St. Lawrence Island and Cape Wankarem in Siberia. Nordenskiöld speaks of the use of this implement at Pitlekaj and figures a specimen.353 The other instrument appears to be less common. I have called it a seal rattle.

Seal rattle.—

We obtained only two specimens, No. 56533 [409], which seem to be a pair. Fig. 254 is one of these. It is of cottonwood and 4 inches long, roughly carved into the shape of a seal’s head and painted red, with two small transparent blue glass beads inlaid for the eyes. The neat becket of seal thong consists of three or four turns with the end wrapped spirally around them. The staple on which the ivory pendants hang is of iron. This is believed to be a rattle to be shaken on the ice by a string tied to the becket for the purpose of attracting seals to the ice net. It was brought in for sale at a time during our first year when we were very busy with zoological work, and as something was said about “nĕtyĭ” and “kubra” (“seal” and “net”) the collector concluded that they must be floats for seal nets, and they were accordingly catalogued as such and laid away. We never happened to see another specimen, and as these were sent home in 1882 we learned no more of their history. The late Dr. Emil Bessels, however, on my return called my attention to the fact that in the museum at Copenhagen there is a single specimen very similar to these, which was said to have been used in the manner described above. It came from somewhere in eastern America. There is one, he told me, in the British Museum from Bering Strait. The National Museum contains several specimens collected by Mr. Nelson at Point Hope. It is very probable that this is the correct explanation of the use of these objects, as it assigns a function to the ivory pendants which would otherwise be useless. They have been called “dog bells,” but the Eskimo, at Point Barrow, at least, are not in the habit of marking their dogs in any way.

Seal indicators.—

When watching for a seal at his breathing hole a native inserts in the hole a slender rod of ivory, which is held loosely in place by a cross piece or a bunch of feathers on the end. When the seal rises he pushes up this rod, which is so light that he does not notice it, and thus warns the hunter when to shoot or strike with his spear. Most of the seal hunting was done at such a distance from the station that I remember only one occasion when this implement was 255 seen in use. We collected two specimens, of which No. 56507 [104], Fig. 255a, will serve as the type. It is of walrus ivory, 14½ inches long and 0.3 in diameter, with a small lanyard of sinew. The curved cross piece of ivory, 1⅓ inches long, is inserted into a slot one-fourth of an inch from the end and secured by a little treenail of wood.

Fig. 255b (No. 89454 [1114], from Nuwŭk) is a similar indicator, 13½ inches long and flat (0.3 inch wide and 0.1 thick). The upper end is carved into scallops for ornament and has a small eye into which was knotted a bit of whalebone fiber. The tip is beveled off with a concave bevel on both faces to a sharp edge, so that it can be used for a “feather setter” (ĭgugwau) in feathering arrows. Such implements are mentioned in most popular accounts of the Eskimo of the east, and Capt. Parry describes it from personal observation at Iglulik.354 I have been unable to find any mention of its use in western America, and have seen no specimens in the National Museum.

Sealing stools.—

When a native is watching a seal-hole he frequently has to stand for hours motionless on the ice. His feet would become exceedingly cold, in spite of the excellence of his foot covering, were it not for a little three-legged stool about 10 inches high upon which he stands. This stool is made of wood, with a triangular top just large enough to accommodate a man’s feet, with the heels together over one leg of the stool, and the other two legs supporting the toes of each foot, respectively. The stool is neatly made, and is as light as is consistent with strength. It is universally employed and carried by the hunter, slung on the gun cover with the legs projecting behind.

When the hunter has a long time to wait he generally squats down so as almost to sit on his heels, holding his gun and spear in readiness, and wholly covered with one of the deerskin cloaks already described. They sometimes use this stool to sit on when waiting for ducks to fly over the ice in the spring.

We brought home two specimens of this common object (nĭgawaúotĭn). No. 89887 [1411], Fig. 250, will serve as the type. The top is of spruce, 8¾ inches long and 10¾ wide. The upper surface is flat and smooth, the lower broadly beveled off on the edges and deeply excavated in the middle, so that there are three straight ridges joining the three legs, each of which stands in the middle of a slight prominence. The object of cutting away the wood in this way is to make the stool lighter, leaving it thick only at the points where the pressure comes. The large round hole in the middle, near the front, is for convenience in picking it up and hanging it on the cache frame, where it is generally kept. The three legs are set into holes at each corner, spreading out so as to stand on a base larger than the top of the stool. Where they fit into the holes they are 0.7 inch in diameter, tapered slightly to fit the hole, and then tapering down to a diameter of one-third inch at the tip. On the under side of the top they are braced with a lashing of stout seal thong. A split on the right-hand edge of the top has been mended, as usual, with a stitch of whalebone. This stool is quite old and has been actually used.

No. 89888 [1412], from the same village, is new and a little larger, but differs from the type only in having a triangular instead of a round hole in the top and no lashing. Those of our party who landed at Sidaru September 7, 1881, saw one of these stools hanging up in the then vacant village, and there is a precisely similar stool in the Museum from the Anderson region.

MacFarlane, in his manuscript notes, describes the use of these stools as follows: “Both tribes kill seals under ice; that is, they watch for them at their holes (breathing) or wherever open water appears. At the former they generally build a small snow house somewhat like a sentinel’s box, on the bottom of which they fix a portable three-cornered stool, made of wood. They stand on this and thereby escape getting cold feet, as would be the case were they to remain for any time on ice or snow in the same immovable position.” Beyond this I find no mention of the use of any such a utensil, east or west, except in Greenland, where, however, they used a sort of one-legged chair to sit on, as well as a footstool, which Egede pictures (Pl. 9) as oval, with very short legs.355

Seal drags (uksiu´tiñ.)—

Every seal hunter carries with him a line for dragging home his game, consisting of a stout thong doubled in a bight about 18 inches long, with an ivory handle or knob at the other end. The bight is looped into an incision in the seal’s lower jaw, while the knob serves for attaching a longer line or the end of a dog’s harness. The seal is dragged on his back and runs as smoothly as a sled. We 257 collected eight of these drag lines, from which I have selected No. 56624 [44], Fig. 257a, as the type.

This consists of a stout thong of rawhide (the skin of the bearded seal) 0.3 inch wide and 37 inches long, and doubled in a bight so that one end is about 2½ inches the longer. These ends are fastened into a handle of walrus ivory, consisting of three pieces, namely: a pair of 258 neatly carved mittens, respectively 1.9 and 1.8 inches long, put together wrist to wrist with the palms up; and lying across the joint above, a little seal 1¼ inches long, belly down. A hole runs through each wrist and through the belly of the seal. The mittens are ornamented on the back with a blackened incised pattern, and the seal has blue glass beads for eyes and blackened incised spots on the back. The longer end of the thong runs up through the right mitten, across through the seal, and down through the left mitten. It is then passed through a slit 1 inch from the end of the shorter part and slit itself. Through this slit is passed the bight of the thong, all drawn up taut and seized with sinew braid.

No. 89467 [755], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a similar drag, put together in much the same way, but it has the mittens doweled together with two wooden pins, and a seal’s head with round bits of wood inlaid for eyes, ears, and nostrils, in place of the seal. The longitudinal perforation in this head shows that it was originally strung lengthwise on one of these lines. The “double slit splice” of the two ends of the thong is worked into a complicated round knot, between which and the handle the two parts of the line are confined by a tube of ivory 1 inch long, ornamented with deeply incised patterns. Fig. 257b is the upper part of a line (No. 56622 [36], from Utkiavwĭñ), with a similar tube 1¾ inches long, and a handle carved from a single piece into a pair of mittens like the others.

No. 56625 [81], also from Utkiavwĭñ, is almost exactly similar to the one first described, but has the seal belly up. Fig. 257c (No. 89470 [1337], from the same village) has a seal 2.3 inches long for the handle, and No. 56626 [212], from Utkiavwĭñ, is like it. No. 89469a, [755a] Fig. 257d, from Utkiavwĭñ, has for a handle the head of a bearded seal 1.6 inches long, neatly carved from walrus ivory, with round bits of wood inlaid for the eyes and ears. It is perforated longitudinally from the chin to the back of the head, and a large hole at the throat opens into this. The longer end of the thong is passed in at the chin and out at the back of the head; the shorter, in at the back of the head and out at the throat; the two ends brought together between the standing parts and all stopped together with sinew braid.

No. 56627 [45], Fig. 257e, has a handle made of two ivory bears’ heads, very neatly carved, with circular bits of wood inlaid for eyes, and perforated like the seal’s head just described. The thong is doubled in the middle and each end passed through one of the heads lengthwise, so as to protrude about 7 inches. About 4 inches of end is then doubled over, thrust through the throat hole of the opposite head, and brought down along the standing parts. All the parts are stopped together with sinew braid. This makes a small becket above the handle.

We collected seven knobs for these drag lines, of which six are seals’ heads and one a bear’s. They are all made of walrus ivory, apparently each a single tooth, and not a piece of tusk, and are about 1½ inches to 2 inches long. They are generally carved with considerable skill, and 259 often have the ears, roots of the whiskers, nostrils, and outline of the mouth incised and blackened, while small blue beads, bits of ivory, or wood are inlaid for the eyes. Implements of this sort are in common use among Eskimo generally wherever they are so situated as to be able to engage in seal-hunting. Mr. Nelson’s collection contains specimens from as far south as Cape Darby.

Whalebone wolf-killers (ĭsĭbru).—

Before the introduction of the steel traps, which they now obtain by trade, these people used a peculiar contrivance for catching the wolf. This consists of a stout rod of whalebone about 1 foot long and one-half inch broad, with a sharp point at each end. One of these was folded lengthwise in the form of a Z,356 wrapped in blubber (whale’s blubber was used, according to our informant, Nĭkawáalu), and frozen solid. It was then thrown out on the snow where the wolf could find and swallow it. The heat of the animal’s body would thaw out the blubber, releasing the whalebone, which would straighten out and pierce the walls of the stomach, thus causing the animal’s death. Nikawáalu says that a wolf would not go far after swallowing one of these blubber balls.

We collected four sets of these contrivances, one set containing seven rods and the others four each. Fig. 258a gives a good idea of the shape of one of these. It belongs to a set of seven, No. 89538 [1229], Fig. 258b, from Utkiavwĭñ, which are old and show the marks of having been doubled up. It is 12½ inches long, 0.4 broad, and 0.2 thick. The little notches on the opposite edges of each end were probably to hold a lashing of sinew which kept the folded rod in shape while the blubber was freezing, being cut by thrusting a knife through the partially frozen blubber, as is stated by Schwatka.357 Two of the sets are new, but made like the others.

This contrivance is also used by the Eskimo of Hudson Bay358 and at Norton Sound, where, according to Petroff,359 the rods are 2 feet long and wrapped in seal blubber. The name ĭsĭ´bru appears to be the same as the Greenlandic (isavssok), found only in the diminutive isavssoraĸ, a provincial name for the somewhat similar sharp-pointed stick baited with blubber and used for catching gulls. The diminutive form of this 260 word in Greenlandic may indicate that their ancestors once used the large wolf-killer, when they lived where wolves were found. The definition of uju´kuaĸ, the ordinary word for the gull-catcher (see below)—in the Grønlandske Ordbog—is the only evidence we have of the use of this contrivance in Greenland. This is one of the several cases in which we only learn of the occurrence of customs, etc., noted at Point Barrow, in Greenland, by finding the name of the thing in question defined in the dictionary.

Traps.—

Foxes are caught in the winter by deadfalls or steel traps (nänori´a), set generally along the beach, where the foxes are wandering about in search of carrion thrown up by the sea. In setting the deadfalls a little house about 2 feet high is built, in which is placed the bait of meat or blubber. A heavy log of driftwood is placed across the entrance, with one end raised high enough to allow a fox to pass under it, and supported by a regular “figure of four” of sticks. The fox can not get at the bait without passing under the log, and in doing so he must touch the trigger of the “figure of four” (4), which brings down the log across his back. When a steel trap is used it is not baited itself, but buried in the snow at the entrance of a similar little house, so that the fox can not reach the bait without stepping on the plate of the trap and thus springing it. Many foxes are taken with such traps in the course of the winter.

The boys use a sort of snare for catching setting birds. This is simply a strip of whalebone made into a slip-noose, which is set over the eggs, with the end fastened to the ground, so that the bird is caught by the leg. Once or twice, when there was a light snow on the beach, we saw a native catching the large gulls as follows: He had a stick of hard wood, pointed at each end, to the middle of which was fastened one end of a stout string about 6 feet long. The other end was secured to a stake driven into the frozen gravel, and the stick wrapped with blubber and laid on the beach, with the string carefully hidden in the snow. The gull came along, swallowed the lump of blubber, and as soon as he tried to fly away the string made the sharp stick turn like a toggle across his gullet, the points forcing their way through, so that he was held fast. A similar contrivance, but somewhat smaller and made of bone, is used at Norton Sound for catching gulls and murres, a number of them being attached to a trawl line and baited with fish. Mr. Nelson collected a large number of these.360 In regard to the use of this contrivance in Greenland, see above under “wolf-killers.”

Snow-goggles.—

The wooden goggles worn to protect the eyes from snow-blindness may be considered as accessories to hunting, as they are worn chiefly by those engaged in hunting or fishing, especially when deer-hunting in the spring on the snow-covered tundra or when in the whaleboats among the ice. They are simply a wooden cover for the 261 eyes, admitting the light by a narrow horizontal slit, which allows only a small amount of light to reach the eye and at the same time gives sufficient range of vision. Such goggles are universally employed by the Eskimos everywhere361 except in Siberia, where they use a simple shade for the eyes.362

We brought home four pairs of these goggles (í´dyĭgûñ), of which No. 89894 [1708], Fig. 259, represents the common form. These are of pine wood, 5.8 inches long and 1.1 inches broad, and deeply excavated on the inside, with a narrow horizontal slit with thin edges on each side of the middle. In the middle are two notches to fit the nose, the one in the lower edge deep and rounded, the upper very shallow. The two holes in each end are for strings of sinew braid to pass round the head. They are neatly made and the outside is scraped smooth and shows traces of a coat of red ocher.

The history of this particular pair of goggles is peculiarly interesting. Though differing in no important respect from those used at the present day, they were found on the site of the ancient village of Isû´tkwa, where our station stood, buried at a depth of 27 feet in undisturbed frozen ground, and were uncovered in digging the shaft sunk by Lieut. Ray for obtaining earth temperatures.363 The layer in which they were found was evidently an old sea beach, consisting of sand and gravel mixed with broken shells, among which Mya truncata was recognized. The amount of the superincumbent gravel and similar material above this object does not necessarily indicate any very great length of time since they were first buried, as will be readily understood from what I have said above (p. 28) about the rapidity with which high hummocks of gravel are pushed up by the ice. The unbroken layer of turf, however, nearly a foot thick, with which the ground was covered at this point, shows that a considerable period must have elapsed since the gravel had reached nearly to its present level.

The pattern of these goggles is to my mind a very decided proof that at that early date this region was inhabited by Eskimo not essentially different from its present inhabitants. Goggles worn at the present day are almost always of the shape of these, though I remember seeing one pair made in two pieces joined by short strings of beads across the nose. They are, I think, universally painted with red ocher on the outside and 262 blackened inside. They were not always made of wood, as there are two specimens in the collection made of a piece of antler, following the natural curve of the beam, divided longitudinally, with the softer inside tissue hollowed out.

Fig. 260 (No. 89701 [763], from Utkiavwĭñ) represents one of these specimens. I do not recollect ever seeing goggles of this material in actual use. No. 89703 [754], Fig. 261, is an unusual pattern, having along the top a horizontal brim about one-half inch high, which serves for an additional shade to the eyes. Above this are two oblique holes opening into the cavity inside, which are probably for the purpose of ventilation, to prevent the moisture from the skin from being deposited as frost on the inside of the goggles or on the eyelashes. I do not remember having seen such goggles worn. Dall figures a similar pair from Norton Sound, and those brought by Mr. Turner from Ungava have a similar brim and ventilating holes. The snow goggles mentioned in Parry’s Second Voyage (p. 547) as occasionally seen at Iglulik, but more common in Hudson’s Strait, appear to have resembled these, but had a brim 3 or 4 inches deep.

Meat-cache markers.—

We purchased a couple of little ivory rods, each with a little bunch of feathers tied to one end, which we were told were used by the deer hunters to mark the place where they had buried the flesh of a deer in the snow. This implement is called tû´kusia.

Fig. 262, represents one of these (No. 89531 [978] from Nuwŭk). It is a flat, slender rod of white walrus ivory, 11½ inches long, and evidently broken off at the tip. The 263 other end is cut into ornamental notches, and ornamented with an incised pattern colored with red ocher, consisting of conventional lines and the figure of a reindeer on each face, a buck on one face and a doe on the other. Tied by a bit of sinew to the uppermost notch are four legs and three wing tips (three or four primaries, with the skin at the base) of the buff-breasted sandpiper (Tryngites subruficollis). This was evidently longer when new and perhaps was originally used for a seal indicator (which see above). Fig. 263 (No. 89453 [1581] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a similar rod, the tip of which has been brought to an edge so that it can be used as a “feather-setter” in feathering arrows. The remains of two wing tips of some small bird are tied to one of the notches at the upper end.

METHODS OF HUNTING.

Having now described in detail all the weapons and other implements used in hunting, I am prepared to give an account of the time and methods of pursuing the different kinds of game.

The polar bear.—

Bears are occasionally met with in the winter by the seal hunters, roaming about the ice fields at some distance from the shore. They usually run from a man and often do not make a stand even when wounded. Occasionally, however, a bear rendered bold by hunger comes in from the sea and makes an attack on some native’s storehouse of seal meat even in the midst of the village. Of course, in such a case he has very little chance of escape, as the natives all turn out with their rifles and cut off his retreat. Two bears were killed in this way at Utkiavwĭñ in the winter of 1882-’83. The bear is always attacked with the rifle, often with the help of dogs to bring him to bay. The umiaks when walrus hunting sometimes meet with bears among the loose ice. If the bear is caught in the water, there is very little difficulty in paddling up close enough to him to shoot him.

The wolf.—

The wolf can hardly be considered a regular object of pursuit. Wolves are often seen and occasionally shot by deer hunters in the winter, and one family in the summer of 1883 managed to catch a couple of young wolf cubs alive, somewhere between Point Barrow and the Colville. These they brought home with them and kept them picketed on the tundra just outside of the village, with a little kennel of snow to shelter them, carefully feeding them till winter, when their fur had grown long enough for use in trimming hoods. They were then 264 killed with a stone-headed arrow, which we were told was necessary for the purpose, and their skins dressed and cut into strips which were sold around the village. Superstition required that the man who killed these wolves should sleep outside of the house in a tent or snow hut for “one moon” after killing them. We did not learn the reason for this practice beyond that it would be “bad” to do otherwise.

The fox.—

Foxes are sometimes shot, but are generally taken in the traps described above, which are usually set some distance from the village so as to avoid catching prowling dogs. Though generally exceedingly shy, the fox is sometimes rendered careless by hunger. One of the women at the deer-hunters’ camp in the spring of 1882 caught one in the little snow house built to store the meat and killed him with a stick.

The reindeer.—

Reindeer are comparatively scarce within the radius of a day’s march from Point Barrow, though solitary animals and small parties are to be seen almost any day in the winter a few miles inland from the seacoast. In the autumn, which is the rutting season, they occasionally wander down to the lagoons back of the beach. Nearly every day in the autumn and winter, when the weather is not stormy, one or more natives are out looking for reindeer, usually traveling on snowshoes and carrying their rifles slung on their backs. The deer are generally very wild and often perceive a man and begin to run at a distance of a mile or two, though a rutting buck will sometimes fancy that a skin-clad Eskimo is a rival buck, and come toward him, especially if the hunter crouches down and keeps perfectly still.

The usual method of hunting is to walk off inland until a deer is sighted, when the hunter moves directly toward him at a rapid pace, without regard to the wind or attempting to conceal himself, which would be almost hopeless in such open country. As soon as the deer starts to run, the hunter quickens his pace—to a run, if he has “wind” enough—and follows the game as long as he can keep it in sight, trusting that the well known curiosity of the deer will induce it to “circle” round, in order to see what it is that is following him with such pertinacity. Should the deer turn, as often happens, especially if there is more than one of them, the hunter alters his course so as to head him off, and as soon as he gets within long rifle range opens fire, and keeps it up till the animal is hit or escapes out of range. Strange as it may seem, a number of deer are killed every winter in this way.

If a deer be killed, the hunter usually “butchers” him on the spot, and brings in as much of the meat as he can carry on his back, leaving the rest, carefully covered with slabs of snow to protect it from the foxes, to be brought in as soon as convenient by a dog sled, which follows the hunter’s tracks to the place.

During the spring the deer retire some distance from the Point, and the does then drop their fawns. At this season nearly all the natives are busily engaged in the whale fishery, and pay little attention to the 265 reindeer, so that we did not learn where they went to. When the fawns are perhaps a month old a small party, say a young man and his wife, sometimes makes a short journey to the eastward to procure fawn skins for clothing. They say that the fawns at this age can be caught by running them down. During the summer again the deer come down to the coast in small numbers, taking to the water in the lagoons, or even in the sea, when the flies become troublesome.

Sometimes in warm, calm weather the flies are so numerous that the deer is driven perfectly frantic, and runs along without looking where he is going, so that, as the natives say, a hunter who places himself in the deer’s path has no difficulty in shooting him. Flies were unusually scarce both summers that we were at the station, so that we never had an opportunity of seeing this done. When a deer is seen swimming he is pursued with the kaiak and lanced in the manner already described. In July, 1883, one man from Utkiavwĭñ made a short journey inland, “carrying” his kaiak from lake to lake, and killed two deer in this way without firing a shot. I believe this method of hunting is frequently practiced by the parties who go east for trading in the summer, and those who visit the rivers for the purpose of hunting.

The natives seemed to expect deer in summer at the lagoons, as along the isthmus between Imê´kpûñ and Imêkpûnĭglu they had set up a range of stakes, evidently intended to turn the deer up the beach where he would be seen from the camp at Pernijû. Only one deer, however, came down either summer, and he escaped without being seen. This contrivance of setting up stakes to guide the deer in a certain direction is very commonly used by the Eskimo. Egede gives a curious description of the practice in Greenland in his day: They “chase them [i.e., the reindeer] by Clap-hunting, setting upon them on all sides and surrounding them with all their Women and Children to force them into Defiles and Narrow Passages, where the Men armed lay in wait for them and kill them. And when they have not People enough to surround them, then they put up white Poles (to make up the Number that is wanted) with Pieces of Turf to head them, which frightens the Deer and hinders it from escaping.”364 Pl. 4, of the same work, is a very curious illustration of this style of hunting.

A similar method is practiced at the Coppermine River, where the deer are led by ranges of turf toward the spot where the archer is hidden.365 Franklin also noticed between the Mackenzie and the Colville similar ranges of driftwood stumps leading across the plain to two cairns on a hill,366 and Thomas Simpson mentions a similar range near Herschel Island,367 and double rows of turf to represent men leading down to a small lake near Point Pitt, for the purpose of driving the deer into the water where they could be speared.368 This is 266 similar to the practice described by Schwatka369 among the “Netschilluk” of King William’s Land, where a line of cairns as high as a man and 50 to 100 yards apart is built along a ridge running obliquely to the water. When deer are seen feeding near the water the men form a skirmish line from the last cairn to the water and advance slowly. The deer mistake the cairns for men and take to the water, where they are easily speared.

The most important deer hunt takes place in the late fall and early spring, when the natives go inland 50 or 75 miles to the upper waters of Kuaru and Kulugrua, where the deer are exceedingly plentiful at this season. Capt. Herendeen, who went inland with the deer hunters in the autumn of 1882, reports that the bottom lands of Kulugrua “looked like a cattle yard,” from the tracks of the reindeer. They start as soon as it is possible to travel across the country with sledges, usually about the first of October, taking guns, ammunition, fishing tackle, and the necessary household utensils for themselves and their families, and stay till the daylight gets too short for hunting. In 1882, many parties got home about October 27 or 28. At this season there is seldom snow enough to build snow huts, so they generally live in tents, always close to the rivers from which they procure water for household use. The men spend their time hunting the deer, while the women bring in the game, attend to drying the skins and the household work, and catch whitefish and burbot through the ice of the rivers, which are now frozen hard enough for this purpose. Some of the old men and those who have not a supply of ammunition engage in the same pursuit.

A comparatively small number of the people go out to this fall deer hunt, which appears to be a new custom, adopted since Dr. Simpson’s time. It was probably not worth while to go out after deer at seasons when there was not enough snow for digging pitfalls, since they depended chiefly on these for the capture of the reindeer before the introduction of firearms. Fully half of each village go out on the spring deer hunt, as they did in Maguire’s time, the first parties starting out with the return of the sun, about January 23, and the others following in the course of two or three weeks, and remain out till about the middle of April, when it is time to come back for the whale fishery. The people of Utkiavwĭñ always travel to the hunting grounds by a regular road, which is the same as that followed by Lieut. Ray in his exploring trips. They travel along the coast on the ice wherever it is smooth enough till they reach Sĭ´ñaru, and then strike across country, crossing Kuaru and reaching Kulugrua near the hill Nuasu´knan. (See map, Pl. II.)

The people from Nuwŭk travel straight across Elson Bay to the south till they reach nearly the same region. Some parties from Nuwŭk also hunt in the rough country between Kulugrua and Ikpĭkpûñ. As the sledges are heavily laden with camp equipage, provisions and oil for the lamps, they travel slowly, taking four or five days for the journey, 267 stopping for the night with tolerable regularity at certain stations where the first party that travels over the trail build snow huts, which are used by those who follow them. At the rivers they are scattered in small camps of four or five families, about a day’s journey apart. As well as we could learn these camps are in regularly established places, where the same people return every year, if they hunt at all. It even seemed as if these localities were considered the property of certain influential families, who could allow any others they pleased to join their parties.370 It is certain, at all events, that the people of Utkiavwĭñ did not hunt on the Ikpĭkpûñ with the men of Nuwŭk. At this season they live entirely in snow huts, often excavated in the deep drifts under the river bluffs, and the men hunt deer while the women, as before, catch fish in Kuaru and Kulugrua. None are taken in Ikpĭkpûñ. (See above, p. 58.)

Deer are generally very plentiful at this season, though sometimes, as happened in February, 1883, there comes a warm southerly wind which makes them all retreat farther inland for a few days. They are generally hunted by chasing them on snowshoes, in the manner already described, but with much better chances of success, since when a number of hunters are out in the same region the deer are kept moving, so that a herd started by one hunter is very apt to run within gunshot of another. The natives have generally very good success in this spring hunt. Two men who were hunting on shares for the station killed upward of ninety reindeer in the season of 1883. A great deal of the meat is, of course, consumed on the spot, but a good many deer are brought home frozen. They are skinned and brought home whole, only the heads and legs being cut off. The latter are disjointed at the knee and elbow. These frozen carcasses are usually cut up with a saw for cooking. At this season the does are pregnant, and many good-sized fetuses are brought home frozen. We were told that these were excellent food, though we never saw them eaten. For the first two or three days after the return of the deer hunters to the village all the little boys are playing with these fetuses, which they set up as targets for their blunt arrows.

Before starting for the deer hunt the hunters generally take the movable property which they do not mean to carry with them out of the house and bury it in the snow for safe keeping, apparently thinking that while a dishonest person might help himself to small articles left around the house, he could hardly go to work and dig up a cache without attracting the attention of the neighbors. If both families from a house go deer hunting, they either close it up entirely or else get some family who have no house of their own to take care of it during their absence. During the season, small parties, traveling light, with very little baggage, make flying trips to the village, usually to get a fresh supply of 268 ammunition or oil, and at the end of the season a lucky hunter almost always sends in to borrow extra dogs and hire women and children to help bring in his game. The skins, which at this season are very thick and heavy, suitable only for blankets, heavy stockings, etc., are simply rough dried in the open air, and brought in stacked up on a flat sled. Lieut. Ray met a Nuwŭk party returning in 1882 with a pile of these skins that looked like a load of hay. With such heavy loads they, of course, travel very slowly. A few natives, especially when short of ammunition, still use at this season the snow pitfalls mentioned by Capt. Maguire.371

The following is the description of those seen by Lieut. Ray in 1883: A round hole is dug in the drifted snow, along the bank of a stream or lake. This is about 5 feet in diameter and 5 or 6 feet deep, and is brought up to within 2 or 3 inches of the surface, where there is only a small hole, through which the snow was removed. This is carefully closed with a thin slab of snow and baited by strewing reindeer moss and bunches of grass over the thin surface, through which the deer breaks as soon as he steps on it. The natives say that they sometimes get two deer at once.

This method of hunting the reindeer appears uncommon among the Eskimo. I find no mention of it except at Repulse Bay,372 and among the Netsillingmiut, where dogs’ urine is said to be sprinkled on the snow as a bait to attract the deer by its “Salzgehalt.”373 Lieut. Ray was informed by the natives that the “Nunatañmiun” also captured deer by means of a rawhide noose set across a regular deer path, when they discovered such. The noose is held up and spread by a couple of sticks, and the end staked to the ground with a piece of antler. A similar method was practiced by the natives of Norton Sound.374 A few parties visit the rivers in summer for the purpose of hunting reindeer, but most of the natives are either off on the trading expeditions previously mentioned or else settled in the small camps along the coast, 3 or 4 miles apart, whence they occasionally go a short distance inland in search of reindeer.

The seal.—

The flesh of the smaller seals forms such a staple of food, and their blubber and skin serve so many important purposes, that their capture is one of the most necessary pursuits at Point Barrow, and is carried on at all seasons of the year and in many different methods. During the season of open water many seals are shot from the umiaks engaged in whaling and walrus hunting or caught in nets set along the shore at Elson Bay. This is also the only season when seals can be captured with the small kaiak darts.

The principal seal fishery, however, begins with the closing of the sea, usually about the middle of October. When the pack ice comes in there are usually many small open pools, to which the seals resort for air. Most of the able-bodied men in the village are out every day armed 269 with the rifle and retrieving harpoon, traveling many miles among the ice hummocks in search of such holes. When a seal shows his head he is shot at with the rifle, and the hunter, if successful, secures his game with the harpoon. This method of hunting is practiced throughout the winter wherever open holes form in the ice. A native going to visit his nets or to examine the condition of the ice always carries his rifle and retrieving harpoon, in case he should come across an open hole where seals might be found. The hunt at this season is accompanied with considerable danger, as the ice pack is not yet firmly consolidated and portions of it frequently move offshore with a shift of the wind, so that the hunter runs the risk of being carried out to sea. The natives exercise considerable care, and generally avoid crossing a crack if the wind, however light, is blowing offshore; but in spite of their precautions men are every now and then carried off to sea and never return.

The hunters meet with many exciting adventures. On the morning of November 24, 1882, all the heavy ice outside of the bar broke away from the shore, leaving a wide lead, and began to move rapidly to the northeast, carrying with it three seal hunters. They were fortunately near enough to the village to be seen by the loungers on the village hill, who gave the alarm. An umiak was immediately mounted on a flat sled and carried out over the shore ice with great rapidity, so that the men were easily rescued. The promptness and energy with which the people at the village acted showed how well the danger was appreciated.

At this season of the year a single calm night is sufficient to cover all the holes and leads with young ice strong enough to support a man, and occasionally before the pack comes in the open sea freezes over. In this young ice the seals make their breathing holes (adlu), “about the Bigness of a Halfpenny,” as Egede says, and the natives employ the stabbing harpoon for their capture. At the present day this is seldom used alone, but the seal is shot through the head as he comes to the surface, and the spear only used to secure him. Seals which have been shot in this way are sometimes carried off by the current before they can be harpooned. As far as I can learn, this practice of shooting seals at the adlu is peculiar to Point Barrow (including probably the rest of the Arctic coast as far as Kotzebue Sound), though the use of the una, as already stated, is very general.

This method of hunting can generally be prosecuted only a few days at a time, as the movements of the pack soon break up the fields of young ice, though new fields frequently form in the course of the season. After the January gales the pack is so firmly consolidated that there are no longer any open holes or leads, and when the spring leads open young ice seldom forms, so that this method of hunting is as a rule confined to the period between the middle of October and the early part of January.

With the departure of the sun, about the middle of November, begins 270 the netting, which is the most important fishery of the year, but which can be prosecuted with success only in the darkest nights. The natives say that even a bright aurora interferes with the netting. At this season narrow leads of open water are often formed parallel to the shore, and frequently remain open for several days. The natives are constantly reconnoitering the ice in search of such leads, and when one is found nearly all the men in the village go out to it with their nets. A place is sought where the ice is tolerably level and not too thick for about a hundred yards back from the lead, at which distance the nets are set, often a number of them close together, in the manner already described, so that they hang like curtains under the ice, parallel to the edge of the open water. When darkness comes on the hunters begin to rattle on the ice with their ice picks, scratch with the seal call, or make some other gentle and continuous noise, which soon excites the curiosity of the seals that are swimming about in the open lead. One at length dives under the ice and swims in the direction of the sound, which of course leads him directly into the net, where he is entangled.

On favorable nights a great many seals are captured in this way. For instance, on the night of December 2, 1882, the netters from Utkiavwĭñ alone took at least one hundred seals. Such lucky hauls are not common, however. As the weather at this season is often excessively cold, the seals freeze stiff soon after they are taken from the net, and if sufficient snow has fallen they are stacked up by sticking their hind flippers in the snow. This keeps them from being covered up and lost if the snow begins to drift. I have counted thirty seals, the property of one native, piled up in this way into a single stack. The women and children go out at their convenience with dog sleds and bring in the seals. A woman, however, who is at work on deerskin clothing must not touch a hand to the seals or the sled on which they are loaded, but may lend a hand at hauling on the drag line. When the seals are brought to the edge of the beach they must not be taken on land till each has been given a mouthful of fresh water. We did not learn the object of this practice, but Nordenskiöld, who observed a similar custom at Pitlekaj, was informed that it was to keep the leads from closing.375

When the lead keeps open for several days, or there is a prospect of its opening again, the hunter leaves his gear out on the ice, sometimes bringing his ice pick, scoop, and setting pole part way home and sticking them up in the snow alongside of the path. In 1884 a lead remained open for several days about 3 or 4 miles from the village, and the natives made a regular beaten trail out to it. When we visited the netting ground the lead had closed, but nearly all the men had left their gear sticking up near it, with the nets tied up and hung upon the ice picks. They had built little walls of snow slabs as a protection against the wind. The season for this netting ends with the January gales, which close the leads permanently.

Later in the winter the seals resort to very inconsiderable cracks among the hummocks for air, and nets are set hanging around these cracks, so that a seal can not approach the crack without being caught. There was such a crack just in the edge of the rough land floe, not half a mile from Utkiavwĭñ, in February, 1883, from which two men took several seals, visiting the nets every day or two. Those men who do not go off on the deer hunt keep one or more seal nets set all winter, either in this way or in the third method, which can be practiced only after the daylight has come back, when the ice is thick. At this season there are frequently to be found among the hummocks what the natives call i´glus, dome-shaped snow houses about 6 feet in diameter and 2 or 3 feet high, with a smooth round hole in the top, and communicating with the water. These are undoubtedly the same as the snow burrows described by Kumlien,376 which the female seal builds to bring forth her young in.377 They are curious constructions, looking astonishingly like a man’s work. The natives told me that nets set at these places were for the capture of young seals (nĕtyiáru). It appears that these houses are the property of a single female only until her young one is able to take to the water, as a net is kept set at one of these holes, as well as I could understand, sometimes capturing several seals. The net is set flat under the hole, the corners being drawn out by cords let down through small holes in a circle round the main opening, through which the net is drawn. A seal rising to the surface runs his head through the meshes of the net. The small holes and sometimes the middle one are carefully covered with slabs of snow.

The officers of the revenue steamer Corwin, who made the sledge journey along the northeast coast of Siberia in the early summer of 1881, saw seal nets set in this way, flat, under air holes in the ice, with a hole for each corner of the net. When a seal was caught the net was drawn up through the middle hole with a hooked pole.378 In 1883 they began setting these nets at Point Barrow about March 4, and probably about the same date the year before, though we did not happen to observe this method of netting until considerably later.

In June and July, when the ice becomes rotten and worn into holes, the seals “haul out” to bask in the sun, and are then stalked and shot. They are exceedingly wary at this season. The seal usually taken in the methods above described is the rough or ringed seal (Phoca fœtida), but in 1881 a single male ribbon seal (Histriophoca fasciata) was netted, and in 1882 a native shot one at the breathing hole, but it was carried away by the current before he could secure it. The natives said that they sometimes caught the harbor seal (P. vitulina) in the shore nets in Elson Bay. The bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus), whose skin is especially prized for making harpoon lines, boot soles, umiak covers, 272 etc., is never very abundant, and occurs chiefly in the season of open water, when it is captured from the umiak with harpoon and rifle, but they are sometimes found in the winter, as two were killed at breathing holes in the rough ice January 8, 1883.

The walrus.—

The walrus occurs only during the season of open water, and is almost always captured from the umiak with the large harpoon and rifle. The whaling boats usually find a few, especially late in the season, and after the trading parties have gone in the summer the natives who remain are generally out in the boats a good deal of the time looking for walrus and seals. As a general thing walrus are especially plenty in September, when much loose ice is moving backwards and forwards with the current, frequently sleeping in large herds upon cakes of ice. The boats, which are out nearly every day at this season with volunteer crews, not regularly organized as for whaling, paddle as near as they can to these sleeping herds and try to shoot them in the head, aiming also to “fasten” to as many as they can with the harpoon and float as they hurry into the water. A harpooned walrus is followed up with the boat and shot with the rifle when a chance is offered. Swimming walruses are chased with the boat and “fastened to” by darting the harpoon. When a walrus is killed it is towed up to the nearest cake of ice and cut up on the spot. We never knew of the kaiak being used in walrus-hunting, as is the custom among the eastern Eskimo.

The whale.—

The pursuit of the “bowhead” whale (Balæna mysticetus), so valuable not only for the food furnished by its flesh and “blackskin” and the oil from its blubber, but for the whalebone, which serves so many useful purposes in the arts of the Eskimo and is besides the chief article of trade with the ships, is carried on with great regularity and formality. In the first place all the umialĭks (boat-owners) or those who are to be the captains of whaling umiaks, before the deer hunters start out in January, bring all the gear to be used in the whale fishery to the kû´dyĭgĭ, where it is consecrated by a ceremony consisting of drumming and singing, perhaps partaking of the nature of an incantation.

Capt. Herendeen was the only one of our party who witnessed this ceremony, which took place at Utkiavwĭñ on January 9, 1883, and he did not bring back a detailed account of the proceedings. During part of the ceremony all the umialĭks were seated in a row upon the floor, and a woman passed down the line marking each across the face with an oblique streak of blacklead. As soon as the deer hunters return in the spring they begin getting ready for the whales, covering the boats, fitting lines to harpoons, and putting gear of all sorts in perfect order. Every article to be used in whaling—harpoons, lances, paddles, and even the timbers of the boats—must be scraped perfectly clean.379 This work is generally done by the umialĭk himself and his 273 family, as the crews do not enter on their duties till the whaling actually commences. The crews are regularly organized for the season, and are made up during the winter and early spring. They consist of eight or ten persons to each boat, including the captain, who is always the owner of the boat, and sits in the stern and steers, using a larger paddle than the rest, and the harpooner, who occupies the bow. When a bombgun is carried it is intrusted to a third man, who sits in the waist of the boat, and whose duty it is to shoot the whale whenever he sees a favorable opportunity, whether it has been harpooned or not. The rest are simply paddlers.

When used for whaling, the umiak is propelled by paddles alone, sails and oars never being even taken on board. Men are preferred for the whaling crews when enough can be secured, otherwise the vacancies are filled by women, who make efficient paddlers. Some umialĭks hire their crews, paying them a stipulated price in tobacco and other articles, and providing them with food during the season. Others ship men on shares. We did not learn the exact proportions of these shares in any case. They appear to concern the whalebone alone, as all seem to be entitled to as much of the flesh and blubber as they can cut off in the general scramble. At this season exploring parties are out every day examining the state of the ice to ascertain when the pack is likely to break away from the landfloe, and also to find the best path for the umiaks through the hummocks.

In 1882 the condition of the ice was such that the boats could be taken out directly from Utkiavwĭñ, by a somewhat winding path, to the edge of the land floe about five or six miles from the shore. This path was marked out by the seal-hunters during the winter, and some of the natives spent their leisure time widening and improving it, knocking off projecting points of ice with picks and whale spades, and filling up the worst of the inequalities. Much of the path, however, was exceedingly rough and difficult when it was considered finished. In 1883 the land floe was so rough and wide abreast of the village that no practicable path could be made, so all the whalemen with their families moved up to Imê´kpûñ and encamped in tents as already described (see p. 84) for the season. From this point a tolerably straight and easy path was made out to the edge of the land floe. The natives informed me as early as April 1 that it would be necessary for them to move up to Imê´kpûñ, adding that the ice abreast of the village was very heavy and would move only when warm weather came. This prediction was correct, as the season of 1883 was so late that no ships reached the station until August 1.

About the middle of April the natives begin anxiously to expect an east or southeast wind (nígyǝ) to drive off the pack and open the leads, and should it not speedily blow from that quarter recourse is had to supernatural means to bring it. A party of men go out and sit in a semicircle facing the sea on the village cliff, while one man in the middle 274 beats a drum and sings a monotonous chant, interrupted by curious vibrating cries, accompanied with a violent shaking of the head from side to side. This ceremony is conducted with great solemnity, and the natives seemed disinclined to have us witness it, so that we learned very little about it. They, however, told us that the chant was addressed to a tuaña or spirit, requesting him to make the desired wind blow.380 It does not appear to be necessary that the man who delivers the invocation should be a regular magician or “doctor.” A succession of unsuccessful attempts were made in 1882, some of them by men who never to our knowledge practiced incantations on other occasions. During this period, and while the whaling is going on, no pounding must be done in the village, and it is not allowable even to rap with the knuckles on wood for fear of frightening away the whales.381 It is interesting to find that at Norton Sound, where the whale is not pursued, this superstition has been transferred to the salmon fishery, one of the most important industries of the year. Mr. Dall382 says: “While the fishery lasts no wood must be cut with an axe, or the salmon will disappear.”

As soon as the lead opens, and sometimes before when the prospect looks promising, the boats are taken out to the edge of the land floe and kept out there during the season, which lasts till about the last week in June, when they are brought in and got ready for the summer expeditions. When the lead closes, as often happens, the boats are hauled up on the ice and many or all of the crews come home until there are prospects of open water. When there is open water, the boats are always on the lookout for whales, either cruising about in the lead or lying up at the edge of the floe, the crews eating and sleeping when they can get a chance and shooting seals and ducks when there are no whales in sight. The women and children travel back and forth between the village and the boats, carrying supplies of food for the whalemen.

In 1883, there was a regular beaten trail along the smooth shore ice between Imê´kpûñ and Utkiavwĭñ, where people were constantly traveling back and forth. When the boats are out no woman is allowed to sew, as was noticed by Dr. Simpson.383 To carry the umiak out over the ice it is lashed on a flat sled and drawn by dogs and men. A description of one of these boats which I accompanied for part of its journey out to the open water, will show how a whaleboat is fitted out. The rifles, harpoons, lances, and other gear of the party were sent on ahead on a sled drawn by half a dozen dogs, with a woman to lead them. After these had made a short stage, they were unfastened from this 275 sled and brought back and harnessed to the flat sled on which the umiak was lashed. The party, which consisted of five men and two women, one of whom remained with the sled load of gear, then started ahead, the women running in front of the dogs and the men pushing at the sides of the boat. The boat travels very easily and rapidly on smooth ice, but among the hummocks the men have hard work pushing and scrambling, and occasional stops have to be made to widen narrow places in the path and to chisel off projecting points of ice which might pierce the skin cover of the boat. When they came up to the first sled the women were again sent on with this while the men rested. The inflated sealskin floats, five or six in number, the whale harpoon, and whale spades, and ice picks were carried in the boats.

A whaling umiak always carries a number of amulets to insure success. These consisted in this case of two wolf skulls, a dried raven, the axis vertebra of a seal, and numerous feathers. The skin of a golden eagle is considered an excellent charm for whaling, and Nĭkawaalu was particularly desirous to secure the tip of a red fox’s tail, which he said was a powerful amulet. The captain and harpooner wore fillets of mountain sheepskin, with a little crystal or stone image of a whale dangling at each side of the face, and the captain’s fillet was also fringed with the incisor teeth of the mountain sheep. Both wore little stone whales attached to the breast of the jacket, and one woman and one or two of the men had streaks of black lead on their faces.384

When they are on the watch for whales the great harpoon is kept always rigged and resting in a crotch of ivory in the bow of the boat. When a whale is sighted they paddle up as close as possible and the harpooner thrusts the harpoon into him. The whale dives, with the floats attached to him, and the shaft, which is retained, is rigged for striking him when he rises again. The other boats, if any are near, join in the chase until the whale is so wearied that he can be lanced or a favorable opportunity occurs for shooting him. All boats in sight at the time the whale is struck, as I understood, are entitled to an equal share of the whalebone.

As soon as the whale is killed he is towed up to the edge of the land floe and everybody standing on the edge of the ice and in the boats begins hacking away, at random, at the flesh and blubber, some of them going to work more carefully to cut out the whalebone. The “cutting in” is managed without order or control, everybody who can be on the spot being apparently entitled to all the meat, blubber, and blackskin he or she can cut off. The same custom was practiced in Greenland, and is to this day in eastern Siberia.

While they are very particular in all superstitious observances regarding the whales, they are less careful about certain things, such as loud talking and firing guns at seals and fowl when they are waiting for whales, which really hurt their chances with the timid animals. They are less energetic than one would suppose in pursuit of the whale, according to Capt. Herendeen, who spent several days each season with the whaleboats. Instead of cruising about the lead in search of whales they are rather inclined to lie in wait for them at the edge of the floe, so that when the open water is wide many whales escape.

When the leads are very narrow the whales are sometimes shot with the bombgun from the edge of the ice. Success in this appears to be variable. In 1882 only one small whale was secured, and in 1883 one full-grown one, though several were struck and lost each season. The veteran whaling-master, Capt. L. C. Owen, informs me that one season the boats of these two villages captured ten. The season of 1885 was very successful. The natives of the two villages are reported to have taken twenty-eight whales. Capt. E. E. Smith, however, informs me that only seven of these were full-grown.

When actually engaged in whaling the umialik exercises a very fair degree of discipline, but at other times he seems hardly able to keep his men from straggling off to go home or to visit their seal nets, etc., so that he sometimes has to chase a whale “short-handed.”

Nowhere else among the Eskimo does the whale fishery appear to be conducted in such regular manner with formally organized crews as upon this northwest coast. From all accounts the animal is only casually pursued elsewhere with fleets of kaiaks or umiaks manned by volunteer crews.385

The beluga or white whale is only casually pursued, and as far as I could learn is always shot with the rifle. It is not abundant.

Fowl.—

During the winter months a few ptarmigan are occasionally shot, but the natives pay no special attention to birds until the spring migrations. The first ducks appear a little later than the whales, about the end of April or the first week of May, and from that time till the middle of June scarcely a day passes when they are not more or less plenty. The king ducks (Somateria spectabilis) are the first to appear, while the Pacific eiders (S. v-nigra) arrive somewhat later, and are more abundant towards the end of the migrations. At this season all women and children, and many men, go armed with the bolas, and everybody is always on the lookout for flocks of ducks. On four or five favorable days each season, at intervals of a week or ten days, there are great flights of eiders coming up in huge flocks of two or three hundred, stretched out in long diagonal lines. These flocks follow one another in rapid succession and keep the line of the coast, apparently striking straight across Peard Bay from the Seahorse Islands to a point 277 four or five miles below Utkiavwĭñ, and most of them fly up along the smooth shore-ice to Pernyû or Point Barrow. Some flocks always fly up among the hummocks of the land floe, and a few others turn eastward below the village and continue their course to the northeast across the land.

On the days between the great flights there are always a few flocks passing, and some days when there is no flight along shore they are very abundant out at the open water, where the whalemen shoot them in the intervals of whaling. When a great flight begins the people at the village hasten out and form a sort of skirmish line across the shore ice from the shore to the hummocks, a few sometimes stationing themselves among the latter. They take but little pains to conceal themselves, frequently sitting out on the open ice-field on sealing stools or squares of bearskins. The ducks generally keep on their course without paying much attention to the men, and in fact one may often get a shot by running so as to head off an approaching flock. Firing, however, frightens them and makes them rise to a considerable height, often out of gunshot. Many ducks are taken with guns and bolas in these flights.

Rather late in the season the old squaws (Clangula hyemalis) pass to the northeast in large flocks, but usually go so high than none are taken. A good many of these, however, with a few eiders, geese, brant, and loons, remain and breed on the tundra, and are occasionally shot by the natives, though most of them are too busy with whaling and seal and walrus hunting to pay much attention to birds. Small parties of two or three lads or young men, sometimes with their wives, make short excursions inland to the small streams and sand islands east of Point Barrow, after birds and eggs, and the boys from the small camps along the coast towards Woody Inlet are always on the lookout for eggs and small birds, such as they can kill with their bows and arrows or catch in snares. They say that the parties which go east, and those which visit the rivers in summer, get many eggs and find plenty of ducks, geese, and swans, which have molted their flight feathers so that they are unable fly.

About the end of July the return migration of the ducks begins. At this season the flocks, which are generally smaller and more compact than in the spring, come from the east along the northern shore, and cross out to sea at the isthmus of Pernyû, where the natives assemble in large numbers to shoot them as well as to meet with the Nunatañmiun. All the people who have been scattered along the coast in small camps gradually collect at this season at Pernyû, and the returning eastern parties generally stop there two or three days; while, after they have brought their families back to the village, the men frequently walk up to Pernyû for a day or two of duck shooting. The tents are pitched just in the bend of Elson Bay, and north of them is a narrow place in the sandspit over which the ducks often pass. Here the 278 natives dig shallow pits in the gravel, in which they post themselves with guns and bolas. A line of posts is set up along the bend of the beach from the tents almost to the outlet of Imêkpûniglu.

When a light breeze is blowing from the northeast the ducks, no matter how far off shore they are when first seen, always head for the point of land on the other side of this outlet, probably with the intention of following the line of lagoons and going out to sea farther down the coast, as they sometimes do. When, however, they reach this critical point they catch sight of the posts, and the natives who are watching them sharply set up a shrill yell. Frightened by this and by the line of posts, nine times out of ten, if the cry is given at the right moment, the ducks will falter, become confused, and, finally, collecting into a compact body will whirl along the line of posts, past the tents, flying close to the water, and turn out to sea at the first open space, which is just where the gunners are posted. This habit of yelling to frighten the ducks and bring them within gunshot has been observed on the Siberian coast in places where the ducks are in the habit of flying in and out from lagoons over low bars.386 Should the wind blow hard from the east, however, or blow from any other quarter, the ducks do not fly in such abundance, nor do they pay much attention to the posts or the yelling, but often keep on their course down the lagoons, or head straight for the beach and cross wherever they strike it. The latter is generally the habit with the old squaws, who come rather late in the migrations, while the black brant (Branta nigricans) are more apt to go down the lagoons. A few pintail ducks (Dafila acuta), are occasionally shot at this season, and are sometimes found in the two little village ponds (Tûseraru). The shooting at Pernyû usually lasts till the middle or end of September, during which month the natives also shoot a good many gulls (Larus barrovianus and Rhodostethia rosea) as they fly along the shore.

IMPLEMENTS FOR FISHING.

Hooks and lines.—

The streams and lakes in the immediate neighborhood of Point Barrow contain no fish, and there is comparatively little fishing in the sea. When the water first closes in the autumn narrow tide cracks often form at the very edge of the beach. At these cracks the natives frequently catch considerable numbers of Polar cod (Boreogadus saida) and small sculpins (Cottus quadricornis and C. decastrensis), with the hook and line. The tackle for this fishing consists of 279 a short line of whalebone, provided with a little “squid” or artificial bait of ivory, and fastened to a wooden rod about 18 inches or 2 feet long. The lure, which is apparently meant to represent a small shrimp, is kept moving, and the fish bite at it. We brought home two complete sets of tackle for this kind of fishing, two lines without rods and twelve lures or hooks. No. 89548 [1733] Fig. 264, has been selected for description.

The line is 40 inches long and made of four strips of whalebone 0.1 inch wide, fastened together with what appear to be “waterknots.” Two of these strips are of black whalebone, respectively 4½ and 9 inches long; the other two are of light colored whalebone and 15½ and 11 inches long. The light colored end is made fast to the eye in the small end of the hook as follows: The end is passed through the eye, doubled back and passed through a single knot in the standing part, and knotted round the latter with a similar knot (Fig. 265). This knot is the one generally used in fastening a fishing line to the hook. The other end is doubled in a short bight into which is becket-hitched one end of a bit of sinew thread about 3 inches long, and the other end is knotted into a notch at one end of the rod, as the whalebone would be too stiff to tie securely to the stick. The rod is a roughly whittled splinter of California redwood, 14½ inches long. The body of the lure is a piece of walrus ivory 1½ inches long. Through a hole in the large end of this is driven the barbless brass hook, with a broad thin plate at one end bent up, flush with the convex side. When not in use the line is reeled lengthwise on the rod, secured by a notch at each end of the latter, and the hook stuck into the wood on one side of the rod. The hook is wedged into the body of the lure with a bit of whalebone. The other specimen, No. 89547, [1733] from the same village, is almost exactly like this, but has a slightly shorter line, made of three strips of bone, of which the lower two, as before, are of light colored whalebone. The object of using this material is probably to render the part of the line which is under water less conspicuous, as we use leaders and casting lines of transparent silkworm gut. The body of the lure is made of old brown walrus ivory. These lures are 1 inch to 1½ inches long, and vary little in the shape of the body which is usually made of walrus ivory, in most cases darkened on the surface by age or charring, so that when carved into shape it is parti-colored, black and white. The body is often ornamented with small colored beads inlaid for eyes and along the back (Fig. 266a, No. 56609 [153], from Utkiavwĭñ).

The hook is usually of the shape described but is sometimes simply a slightly recurved spur about ½-inch long as in Fig. 266b (No. 56610 [160], 280 also from Utkiavwĭñ). It is usually of brass or copper, rarely of iron. Two peculiar lures from Utkiavwĭñ, are No. 56705 [150a and 150b]. The first, a, has a body of brass of the usual shape, and a copper hook, and the other, b, has the body made of a strip of thin brass to the back of which is fastened a lump of lead or pewter. The hook appears to be made of a common copper tack. We were informed that these lures were also used for catching small fish, trout, smelts, and perhaps grayling in the rivers in summer. No. 89554 [950], Fig. 267a, from Utkiavwĭñ, is perhaps intended exclusively for this purpose, as it is larger than the others, (1.9 inch long) and highly ornamented with beads. Fig. 267b, No. 89783 [1007], is one of these beaded lures (2½ inches long), with an iron hook, undoubtedly for river fishing, as it belonged to the “inland” native, Ilû´bw’ga. It differs slightly in shape from the others, having two eyes at the small end into which is fastened a leader of sinew braid 3 inches long. On this are strung four blue glass beads and one red one.

No. ——387 [151] Fig. 268, from Utkiavwĭñ, is a rod rigged for fishing in the rivers. The rod is a roughly whittled stick of spruce or pine, 27 inches long. One line is 43 and the other 36 inches long and each is made of two strips of whalebone of which the lower is light colored as usual. The shorter line carries a small plain ivory lure of the common pattern, and the longer one a little flat barbless hook of copper with a broad flat shank. This was probably scraped bright and used without bait. The lines are reeled in the usual manner on the rod, and the hooks caught into notches on the sides of it. The small lures are called nĭ´ksĭñ.

When at the rivers in the autumn and early spring, they fish for burbot with a line carrying a peculiar large hook called iɐkqlûñ, which is baited with a piece of whitefish. There are two forms of this hook, which is from 3 to 5¼ inches long. One form differs in size only from the small nĭ´ksĭn, but is always of white ivory and not beaded (Fig. 269, No. 89550 [780] from Utkiavwĭñ, which is 4½ inches long and has a copper hook). The hook is of copper, brass or iron. The other form, which is perhaps the commoner, has a narrow flat body, slightly bent, and serrated on the edges to give a firm attachment to the bait. This body is usually of antler, and has a copper or iron hook either spur-shaped or of the common form as in Fig. 270, No. 89553 [764] from Utkiavwĭñ, which has a body of walrus ivory 4 inches long and a copper hook. Of late years, small cod hooks obtained from the ships have been adapted to these bodies, as is seen in Fig. 271, No. 89552 [841] from Utkiavwĭñ. The shank of the hook has been half imbedded in a longitudinal groove on the flatter side of the body, with the bend of the hook projecting about ¼ inch beyond the tip of the latter. The ring of the hook has been bent open and the end sunk into the body. The hook is held on by two lashings of sinew, one at each end of the shank.

No. 56594 [32] from Utkiavwĭñ is like the preceding, but has a larger hook, which from the bend to the point is wrapped in a piece of deer skin with the flesh side out, and wound with sinew having a tuft of hair at the point of the hook. This is probably to hide the point when the hook is baited. No. 56594 [167] from Utkiavwĭñ, has the hook fastened to the back of the body instead of the flat side. The manner in which these hooks are baited is shown in Fig. 272, which represents a complete set of burbot tackle (No. 89546 [946]) brought in and sold by some Utkiavwĭñ natives, just as they had been using it in the autumn of 1882 at Kuaru or Kulugrua. A piece of whitefish, flesh and skin, with the scales removed is wrapped round the hook so as to make a club-shaped body 4½ inches long and is sewed up along one side with cotton twine. The copper spur projects through the skin on the other side. 282 This hook would not hold the fish unless it were “gorged,” but the voracious burbot always swallows its prey. In dressing these fish for the table, whitefish of considerable size were frequently found in them. The line is of whalebone like those already described but a little stouter, 78 inches long, and made of seven pieces, all black. The end of the line is fastened into an eye in the small end of a rough club-shaped sinker of walrus ivory, 4¾ inches long. There is another eye at the large end of the sinker, for the attachment of a leader of double sinew braid 5½ inches long connecting the hook with the sinker.

The reel, which serves also as a short rod, is of yellow pine 19½ inches long. When the line is reeled up, the hook is caught into the wood on one side of the reel. No. 89545 [946] is a similar set of baited tackle, bought from the same natives, differing from the preceding only in proportions, having a longer line—9 feet and 6 inches—and a somewhat larger bait. We also procured two sets of burbot tackle unbaited.

One of these (No. 56543 [33] from Utkiavwĭñ) has a whalebone line 14 feet long, and a roughly octahedral sinker of walrus ivory 3 inches long and 1½ in diameter. The hook, which is joined to the sinker as before by a leader of stout sinew braid, is of the second pattern, with serrated edges, and a copper hook. The leader is neatly spliced into this. The other, No. 56544 [187], also from Utkiavwĭñ, has no sinker and a hook with a club-shaped body and iron spur. It was probably put together for sale, as it is new. The sinkers, of which we collected five, besides those already mentioned, are always about the same weight and either club-shaped or roughly octahedral. They are always of walrus ivory and usually carelessly made. Fig. 273 (No. 56577 [260]) represents one of these sinkers (kíbica), on which there is some attempt at ornamentation. On the larger are two eyes and the outline of a mouth like a shark’s, incised and filled in with black refuse oil.

A similar line and reel are used for catching polar cod in the spring and late winter through the ice at some distance from the shore. These lines are 10 or 15 fathoms long, and provided with a heavy sinker of ivory, copper, or rarely lead, to which are attached by whalebone leaders of unequal length, two little jiggers like Fig. 274 (the property of the writer, from Utkiavwĭñ). This is of white walrus ivory, 2⅛ inches long and ⅜ in diameter at the largest part. The two slender hooks are of copper and are secured by wedges of whalebone. This makes a contrivance resembling the squid jigs used by our fishermen. These jiggers are sometimes made wholly of copper, which is scraped bright.

This fishery begins with the return of the sun, about the 283 1st of February, and continues when the ice is favorable until the season is so far advanced that the ice has begun to melt and become rotten. The fish are especially to be found in places where there is a good-sized field of the season’s ice, 3 or 4 feet thick, inclosed by hummocks, and they sometimes occur in very great numbers. In 1882 there was a large field of this kind about 2 miles from the village and the fishing was carried on with great success, but in 1883 the ice was so much broken that the fish were very scarce. Some lads caught a few early in the season, but the fishery was soon abandoned.

A hole about a foot in diameter is made through the ice with an ice pick, and the fragments dipped out either with the long-handled whalebone scoop, or the little dipper made of two pieces of antler mounted on a handle about 2 feet long, which everybody carries in the winter. The line is unreeled and let down through the hole till the jigs hang about a foot from the bottom. The fisherman holds in his left hand the dipper above mentioned, with which he keeps the hole clear of the ice crystals, which form very quickly, and in his right the reel which he jerks continually up and down. The fish, attracted by the white “jiggers,” begin nosing around them, when the upward jerk of the line hooks one of them in the under jaw or the belly. As soon as the fisherman feels the fish, he catches a bight of the line with the scoop in his left hand and draws it over to the left; then catches the line below this with the reel and draws it over to the right, and so on, thus reeling the line up in long hanks on these two sticks, without touching the wet line with his fingers.

When the fish is brought to the surface of the ice, he is detached from the barbless hook with a dextrous jerk, and almost instantly freezes solid. The elastic whalebone line is thrown off the stick without kinking and let down again through the hole. When fish are plentiful, they are caught as fast as they can be hauled up, sometimes one on each “jigger.” If the fisherman finds no fish at the first hole he moves to another part of the field and tries again until he succeeds in “striking a school.” The fish vary in abundance on different days, being sometimes so plentiful that I have known two or three children to catch a bushel in a few hours, while some days very few are to be taken. In addition to the polar cod, a few sculpins are also caught, and occasionally the two species of Lycodes (L. turnerii and coccineus) which voracious fish sometimes seize the little polar cod struggling on the “jigger” and are thus caught themselves. This fishery is chiefly carried on by the women, children, and old men, who go out in parties of five or six, though the hunters sometimes go fishing when they have nothing else to do. There were generally thirty or forty people out at the fishing-ground every day in 1882.

Jiggers of this pattern appear to be used at Pitlekaj, from Nordendskiöld’s description388, but I have seen no account either there or elsewhere 284 of the peculiar method of reeling up the line such as we saw at Point Barrow. Lines of whalebone are very common among the Eskimo generally,389 and perhaps this material is preferable to any other for fishing in this cold region, for not only does the elastic whalebone prevent kinking, but the ice which forms instantly on the wet line in winter does not adhere to it, but can easily be shaken off. No. 56545 [410] is a line 51 feet and 10 inches long and 0.05 inch in diameter, made of human hair, neatly braided in a round braid with four strands. This was called a fishing line, but was the only one of the kind seen. Fishhooks of the kind described, with a body of bone or ivory, which serves for a lure, armed with a spur or bent hook of metal, without a barb, seem to be the prevailing type amongst the Eskimo. In the region about Norton Sound (as shown by the extensive collections of Mr. Nelson and others) this is often converted into an elaborate lure by attaching pendants of beads, bits of the red beak of the puffin, etc. Crantz mentions a similar custom in Greenland of baiting a hook with beads.390

Nets (Kubra).—

The most important fishery at the rivers is carried on by means of gill-nets, set under the ice, and visited every few days. In these are taken large numbers of all three species of whitefish (Coregonus kenicotti, C. nelsoni, and C. laurettæ.) The collection contains three specimens of these nets, two of whalebone and one of sinew. No. 56754 [147], Fig. 275, is a typical whalebone net. It is long and shallow, 79 meshes long and 21 deep, made of fine strips of whalebone fastened together as in the whalebone fishing lines. Most of the whalebone is black, but a few light colored strips are intermixed at random. The length of the mesh is 3¼ inches, and the knot used in making them is the ordinary netting-knot. When not in use the net is rolled up into a compact ball and tied up with a bit of string. When set, this net is 21 feet 7 inches long and 3 feet 4 inches deep. The other whalebone net (No. 56753 [172], also from Utkiavwĭñ), is similar to this, but slightly larger, being 87 meshes (25 feet) long and 22 (3 feet 9 inches) deep. The length of mesh is 3½ inches. 285 Fig. 276 (unit of web) is a net (No. 56752 [171] from the same village) of the same mesh and depth, but 284 meshes (60 feet) long and made of twisted sinew twine.

I had no opportunity of seeing the method of setting these nets under the ice, but it is probably the same as that used in setting the seal nets. When in camp at Pernyû in the summer, the natives set these nets in the shoal water of Elson Bay, at right angles to the beach, with a stake at each end of the net. They are set by a man in a kayak, and in them are gilled considerable numbers of whitefish, two species of salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha and O. nerka) and an occasional trout (Salvelinus malma). They take these nets east with them on their summer expeditions, but we did not learn the method of using them at this season. Perhaps they are sometimes used for seining on the beach, as Thomas Simpson says that the Eskimo at Herschel Island (probably Kûñmûd´lĭñ) sold his party “some fine salmon trout, taken in a seine of whalebone, which they dragged ashore by means of several slender poles spliced together to a great length.”391

An Utkiavwĭñ native told us that he found trout (Salvelinus malma) so plentiful at or near the mouth of the Colville, in 1882, that he fed his dogs with them.

Fig. 277 is a peculiar net or fish-trap (No. 56755 [190]) from Utkiavwĭñ, the only specimen of the kind seen. It is a conical, wide-mouthed bag, 8 feet 4 inches long and 5½ feet wide at the mouth, netted all in one piece of twisted sinew, with a 2¼-inch mesh. This was brought over for sale at an early date, before we were well acquainted with the natives, and we only learned that it was set permanently for catching fish. Unfortunately, we never saw another specimen, and through the press of other duties never happened to make further 286 inquiries about it. From its shape it would appear as if it were meant to be set in a stream with the mouth towards the current. This contrivance is called sápotĭn, which corresponds to the Greenlandic saputit, a dam for catching fish.

From all accounts, the natives east of the Anderson River region were ignorant of the use of the net before they made the acquaintance of the whites,392 though they now use it in several places, as in Greenland and Labrador. The earliest explorers on the northwest coast, however, found both fish and seal nets in use, though, as I have already mentioned, the seal net was spoken of at Point Barrow as a comparatively recent invention. At the present day, nets are used all along the coast from the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers (see MacFarlane’s Collection) as far south at least as the Yukon delta.393 I have not been able to learn whether gill nets are used in the delta of the Kuskoquim. Petroff394 mentions fish traps and dip nets merely. That the natives of Kadiak formerly had no nets I infer from Petroff’s statement395 that “of late they have begun to use seines of whale sinew.” Nets are generally used on the Siberian coast. We observed them ourselves at Plover Bay, and Nordenskiöld396 describes the nets used at Pitlekaj, which are made of sinew thread. It is almost certain that the American Eskimo learned the use of the net from the Siberians, as they did the habit of smoking, since the use of the gill net appears to have been limited to precisely the same region as the Siberian form of tobacco pipe.397

Spears.—

The only evidence which we have of the use of spears for catching fish in this region is a single specimen, No. 89901 [1227], Fig. 278, from Utkiavwĭñ, which was newly and rather carelessly made for sale, but intended, as we were told, for spearing fish. This has a roughly whittled shaft, of spruce, 21½ inches long, armed at one end with three prongs. The middle prong is of whalebone, 4⅓ inches long, inserted into the tip of the shaft, which is cut into a short neck and whipped with sinew. The side prongs are also of bone, 9 inches long. Through the tip of each is driven a sharp, slender slightly recurved spur of bone, about 1½ inches long. Each prong is fastened to the shaft with two small wooden treenails, and they are braced with a figure-of-eight lashing of sinew through holes in the side prongs and around the middle one. The side prongs are somewhat elastic, so that when the spear is struck down 287 on the back of a fish they spring apart and allow the middle prong to pierce him, and then spring back so that the spurs either catch in his sides or meet below his belly, precisely on the principle of the “patent eel spear.” This implement is almost identical with one in the National Museum from Hudson Bay, which appears to be in general use among the eastern Eskimo.398 The name, kăki´bua, is very nearly the same as that used by the eastern natives (kākkĭe-wĕi, Parry, and kakívak, Kumlien). This spear is admirably adapted for catching large fish in shallow rocky streams where a net can not be used, or where they are caught by dams in tidal streams in the manner described by Egede and Crantz. There is so little tide, however, on the northwest coast, that this method of fishing can not be practiced, and, as far as I know, there is no locality in the range of the Point Barrow natives, a region of open shoal beaches, and rivers free of rocks, where this spear could be used in which a net would not serve the purpose much better. Taking into consideration the scarcity of these spears and the general use of nets, I am inclined to believe that this spear is an ancient weapon, formerly in general use, but driven out of fashion by the introduction of nets.

FLINT WORKING.

These people still retain the art of making flint arrow and spearheads, and other implements such as the blades for the skin scrapers to be hereafter described. Many of the flint arrowheads and spear points already described were made at Nuwŭk or Utkiavwĭñ especially for sale to us and are as finely formed and neatly finished as any of the ancient ones. The flints, in many cases water-worn pebbles, appear to have been splintered by percussion into fragments of suitable sizes, and these sharp-edged spalls are flaked into shape by means of a little instrument consisting of a short, straight rod of some hard material mounted in a short curved haft. We collected nine of these tools (kĭ´gli) of which two have no blades. No. 89262 [1223] figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. III, Fig. 7, has been selected as the type. The handle is of walrus ivory, 7.8 inches long, straight and nearly cylindrical for about 4½ inches, then bending down like a saw handle and spread out into a spatulate butt. Fitted into a deep groove on the top of the handle so that its tip projects 1.8 inches beyond the tip of the latter is a slender four-sided rod of whale’s bone, 4.7 inches long. This is held in place by two simple lashings, one of cotton twine and the other of seal thong. The flint to be flaked is held in the left hand and 288 pressed against the fleshy part of the palm which serves as a cushion and is protected by wearing a thick deer-skin mitten. The tool is firmly grasped well forward in the right hand with the thumb on top of the blade and by pressing the point steadily on the edge of the flint, flakes of the desired size are made to fly off from the under surface.

These tools vary little in pattern, but are made of different materials. Hard bone appears to have been the commonest material for the blade, as three out of the seven blades are of this substance. One specimen (No. 89263 [796] from Utkiavwĭñ) has a blade of iron of the same shape but only 2 inches long. No. 89264 [1001] also from Utkiavwĭñ, Fig. 279a, has a short blade of black flint flaked into a four-sided rod 1½ inches long. This is held in place by a whipping of stout seal thong tightened by thrusting a splinter of wood in at the back of the groove.

Two specimens (Nos. 89260 [794] Fig. 279b and 89261 [1216] both from Utkiavwĭñ) have blades of the peculiar Nuɐsuknan concretions previously described. Each is an oblong pebble wedged into the groove and secured by a lashing as usual. No. 89260 [794] has a haft of antler. This is rather the commonest material for the haft. Two specimens have hafts of walrus ivory and three of fossil ivory. The length of the haft is from 6 to 8 inches, of the blade 1.5 to 4.7 inches. Fig. 280 (No. 89265 [979] from Nuwŭk) is the haft of one of these tools, made of fossil ivory, yellow from age and stained brown in blotches, which shows the way in which the groove for the blade was excavated, namely, by boring a series of large round holes and cutting away the material between them. The remains of the holes are still to be seen in the bottom of the groove. The tip of this haft has been roughly carved into a bear’s head with the eyes and nostrils incised and filled with black dirt, and the eyes, nostrils, and mouth of a human face have been rudely incised on the under side of the butt and also blackened. All this carving is new and was done with the view of increasing the market value of the object. The original ornamentation consists of an incised pattern on the upper surface of the butt, colored with red ocher which has turned black from age and dirt.

Fig. 281 (No. 89782 [1004e]) is one of these tools, very neatly made, with a haft of reindeer antler and a bone blade, secured by a whipping of seal thong which belongs with the “kit” of tools owned by the “inland” native, Ilû´bw’ga. Mr. Nelson collected a number of specimens of this tool at various points on the northwest coast from Point Hope as far south as Norton Bay, but I can find no evidence of its use elsewhere.

FIRE MAKING.

Drills.—

In former times fire was obtained in the method common to so many savages, from the heat developed by the friction of the end of a stick worked like a drill against a piece of soft wood. This instrument was still in use at least as late as 1837,399 but appears to have been wholly abandoned at Point Barrow at the time of the Plover’s visit, though still in use at Kotzebue Sound.400

A native of Nuwŭk one day brought down for sale what he said was an exact model of the ancient fire drill, nióotĭñ. This is No. 89822 [1080], Fig. 282. The drill is a stick of pine 12 inches long, shaped like the shaft of a common perforating drill, brought to a blunt but rounded point. This is worked by a string, without bow or handles, consisting of a strip of the skin of the bearded seal, 40 inches long, and has for a mouthpiece the astragalus bone of a reindeer, the natural hollow on one side serving as a socket for the butt of the drill.401 The point of the drill 290 is made to work against the split surface of a stick of spruce 18 inches long, along the middle of which is cut a gash, to give the drill a start. Three equidistant circular pits, charred and blackened, were bored out by the tip of the drill, which developed heat enough to set fire to the sawdust produced. Tinder was probably used to catch and hold the fire.

Most authors who have treated of the Eskimo have described an instrument of this sort in use either in former times or at the present day.402

Among most Eskimo, however, a bow is used to work the drill. The only exceptions to this rule appears to have been the ancient Greenlanders and the people of Hudson Bay (see the passages from Hakluyt, Crantz, and Ellis, just quoted.) Chamisso, however,403 speaks of seeing the Aleutians at Unalaska produce fire by means of a stick worked by a string making two turns about the stick and held and drawn with both hands, with the upper end of the stick turning in a piece of wood held in the mouth. When a piece of fir was turned against another piece of the same wood fire was often produced in a few seconds. This passage appears to have escaped the usually keen observation of Mr. W. H. Dall, who, speaking of the ancient Aleutians, says: “The ‘fiddle-bow drill’ was an instrument largely used in their carving and working bone and ivory; but for obtaining fire but two pieces of quarz were struck together,” etc.404

I had no opportunity of seeing this drill manipulated, but I have convinced myself by experiment that the stick or “light-stock,” to use Nordenskiöld’s expression, must be held down by one foot, the workman kneeling on the other knee.

Flint and steel.—

Fire is usually obtained nowadays by striking a spark in the ordinary method from a bit of flint with a steel, usually a bit of some white man’s tool. Both are carried, as in Dr. Simpson’s time, in a little bag slung around the neck, along with some tinder made of the down of willow catkins mixed with charcoal or perhaps gunpowder. The flints usually carried for lighting the pipe, the only ones I have seen, are very small, and only a tiny fragment of tinder is lighted which is placed on the tobacco. Lucifer matches (kĭlĭăksagan) were eagerly begged, but they did not appear to care enough for them to purchase them. Our friend Nĭkawáalu, from whom we obtained much information about the ancient customs of these people, told us that long ago, “when there was no iron and no flint”—“savik píñmût, ánma píñmût”405—they used to get “great fire” by striking together two pieces of iron pyrites. Dr. Simpson speaks406 of two lumps of iron pyrites being used for striking fire, but he does not make it clear whether he saw this at Point Barrow or only at Kotzebue Sound. Iron pyrites appears to have been used quite generally among the Eskimo. Bessels saw it used with quartz at Smith Sound, with willow catkins for tinder407 and Lyon mentions the use of two pieces of the same material, with the same kind of tinder, at Iglulik.408 Willow catkins are also used for tinder at the Coppermine River.409

No. 89825 [1133 and 1722] are some of the catkins used for making the tinder, which were gathered in considerable quantities at the rivers. They are called kĭmmiuru, which perhaps means “little dogs,” as we say “catkins” or “pussy willows.”

Kindlings.—

From the same place they also brought home willow twigs, 9 inches long, and tied with sinews into bunches or fagots of about a dozen or a dozen and a half each, which they said were used for kindling fires. (No. 89824 [1725].)

The following section was printed with a run-in, italicized header. It has been changed to agree with the structure shown in the Table of Contents.

BOW-AND-ARROW MAKING.

A complete set of bow-and-arrow tools consists of 4 pieces, viz: a marline spike, two twisters, and a feather setter, as shown in Fig. 283, No. 89465 [962], from Utkiavwĭñ. The pieces of this set are perforated and strung on a piece of sinew braid, 4 inches long, with a knot at each end.

The Marline spike.—

This is a flat, four-sided rod of walrus ivory, 5-6 292 inches long, tapering to a sharp rounded point at one end, and tapered slightly to the other, which terminates in a small rounded knob. It is very neatly made from, rather old yellow ivory, and ornamented on all four faces with conventional incised patterns colored with red ochre.

This implement is used in putting on the backing of a bow to raise parts of the cord when an end is to be passed under and in tucking in the ends in finishing off a whipping. It was probably also used in putting whippings or seizings on any other implements. We collected 10 of these tools, all quite similar, and made of walrus ivory, yellow from age and handling. They vary in length from 4½ to 6 inches, and are always contracted at the upper end into a sort of neck or handle, surmounted by a knob or crossbar. No. 89463 [836] Fig. 284, from Utkiavwĭñ has the crossbar carved very neatly into the figure of an Amphipod crustacean without the legs. The eyes, mouth, and vent are indicated by small round holes filled with some black substance, and there is a row of eight similar holes down the middle of the back. The tip of this tool, which is 5.9 inches long, has been concaved to an edge so as to make a feather-setter of it. Through the knob at the butt there is sometimes a large round eye, as in Fig. 285 (No. 89464 [842] from Utkiavwĭñ, 4.7 inches long). These tools are sometimes plain, like the specimens last figured, and sometimes ornamented with conventional patterns of incised lines, colored with red ocher, like the others.

The twisters

(No. 89465 [962]) are flat four-sided rods of walrus ivory, respectively 4.4 and 4.7 inches long. At each end one broad face is raised into a low transverse ridge about 0.1 inch high and the other rounded off, with the ridge on opposite faces at the two ends. They are ornamented on all four faces with longitudinal incised lines, colored with red ocher.

The use of these tools, which was discovered by actual experiment after our return to this country410 is for twisting the strands of the sinew backing after it has been put on the bow into the cables already 293 described. The manner in which this tool is used is as follows: The end is inserted between the strands at the middle of the bow, so that the ridge or hook catches the lower strands, and the end is carried over through an arc of 180°, which gives the cable a half turn of twist. This brings the twister against the bow, so that the twisting can be carried no further in this direction, and if the tool were to be removed for a fresh start the strands would have to be held or fastened in some way, making the process a slow one. Instead, the tool is slid back between the strands till the other end comes where the first was, so that the hook at this end catches the strand, and the workman can give to the cable another half turn of twist. This is continued until the cable is sufficiently twisted, the tool sliding back and forth like the handle of a vise. The tools are used in pairs, one being inserted in each cable and manipulated with each hand, so as to give the same amount of twist to each cable. At the present day, these tools are seldom used for bow making, since the sinew-backed bow is so nearly obsolete, but are employed in playing a game of the nature of pitch-penny. (See below, under games and pastimes.)

These tools, of which we collected twenty-six specimens, are all of walrus ivory, and of almost exactly the same shape, varying a little in size and ornamentation. They vary in length from 3 to 5.7 inches, but are usually about 4½ inches long. The commonest width is 0.4 inches, the narrowest being 0.3 and the widest 0.7 broad, while the thickness is almost always 0.3, varying hardly 0.1 inch. Most of them are plain, but a few are ornamented with incised lines, and two are marked with “circles and dots” as in Fig. 286, one of a rather large pair (No. 56521 [249] from Utkiavwĭñ). These are 5.4 inches long, neatly made and quite clean. All the others show signs of age and use.

There are large numbers of these tools in the National Museum from various points in the region where bows of the Arctic type are used, namely, from the Anderson River to Norton Sound, and one from St. Lawrence Island, whence we have received no twisted bows. Their use was, however, not definitely understood, as they are described simply as “bow tools,” “bow string twisters” or even “arrow polishers.” Mr. Nelson informs me that the tool is now not used in Norton Sound, except for playing a game, as at Point Barrow, but that the natives told him that they were formerly used for tightening the backing on a bow and also for twisting the hard-laid sinew cord, which is quite as much, if not more, used at Norton Sound as the braid so common at Point Barrow. I find no mention of the use of this tool in any of the authors who have 294 treated of the Eskimo, except the following in Capt. Beechey’s vocabulary, collected at Kotzebue Sound: “Marline spike, small of ivory, for lacing bows—ke-poot-tak.” The specimens from the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers are almost without exception made of hard bone, while walrus ivory is the common material elsewhere. The name (kaputɐ) means simply a “twister.”

The feather-setter

(ĭ´gugwau) (No. 89465 [962]) is a flat, slender, rounded rod of walrus ivory, 7 inches long, with the tip abruptly concaved to a thin, rounded edge. The faces are ornamented with a pattern of straight incised lines, colored with red ocher. This tool is used for squeezing the small ends of the feathering into the wood of the arrow shaft close to the nock. Fig. 287 is a similar tool (No. 89486 [1285] from Utkiavwĭñ) also of walrus ivory, 6 inches long, with the upper end roughly whittled to a sharp point. It is probably made of a broken seal indicator or meat-cache marker. Several other ivory tools previously mentioned have been concaved to an edge at the tip so that they can be used as feather-setters. I do not find this tool mentioned by previous observers, nor have I seen any specimens in the National Museum.

Fig. 288 (No. 89459 [1282] from Utkiavwĭñ) represents an unusual tool, the use of which was not ascertained in the hurry of trade. It has a point like that of a graver, and is made of reindeer antler, ornamented with a pattern of incised lines and bands, colored with red ocher, and was perhaps a marline spike for working with sinew cord.

Footnotes 273-410

273. Journal, p. 92.

274. Compare this with what Capt. Parry says of the workmanship of the people of Iglulik (2d Voy., p. 336). The almost exclusive use of the double-edged pan´na is the reason their work is so “remarkably coarse and clumsy.”

275. Lisiansky also mentions “a small crooked knife” (Voyage, p. 181), as one of the tools used in Kadiak in 1805.

276. A specimen has lately been received at the National Museum. It is remarkably like the Indian knife in pattern.

277. Op. cit., p. 266.

278. See for example, Kumlien, op. cit., p. 26.

279. See, especially, Dall, Contrib., vol. 1, pp. 59 and 79, for figures of such knives from the caves of Unalashka.

280. Prehistoric Fishing, pp. 183-188.

281. It is but just to Dr. Rau to say that he recognized the fact that these implements are not exclusively fish-cutters, and applies this name only to indicate that he has treated of them simply in reference to their use as such. The idea, however, that these, being slightly different in shape from the Greenland olu or ulu, are merely fish knives, has gained a certain currency among anthropologists which it is desirable to counteract.

282. Journal, p. 28.

283. 2d Voyage, p. 536, and pl. opp. p. 548, fig. 3.

284. Figured in the Voyage of the Vega, vol. 1, p. 444, Fig. 1.

285. History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 149.

286. Greenland, p. 175.

287. 2d Voyage, p. 536.

288. Rink, Tales and Traditions, p. 35.

289. Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 239.

290. Franklin, 2d Exp., p. 148. In the hurry of leaving Barter Island “one of the crew of the Reliance left his gun and ammunition.”

291. See McClure’s N. W. Passage, p. 390.

292. Narrative, p. 109.

293. Maguire, Further Papers, p. 907.

294. See the writer’s paper on the subject of Eskimo bows in the Smithsonian Report for 1884, Part II, pp. 307-316.

295. Naturalist, vol 8, No. 9, p. 869.

296. “In former times they made use of bows for land game; they were made of soft fir, a fathom in length, and to make it the stiffer it was bound round with whalebone or sinews.” History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 146.

297. “Their Bow is of an ordinary Make, commonly made of Fir Tree, . . . and on the Back strengthened with Strings made of Sinews of Animals, twisted like Thread.” “The Bow is a good fathom long.” Greenland, p. 101.

298. Voyage of the Vega, vol. 1, p. 41.

299. Hakluyt’s Voyages, 1589, p. 628.

300. Science, vol. 4, 98, p. 543.

301. Voyage to Hudson’s Bay, p. 138.

302. Compare what I have already said about the backing being put on wet.

303. Voyages from Montreal . . . to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans, p. 48.

304. Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th edition, article Archery.

305. On this subject of using the feathers of birds of prey for arrows, compare Crantz, History of Greenland, i, p. 146, “the arrow . . . winged behind with a couple of raven’s feathers.” Bessels, Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 869 (the three arrows at Ita had raven’s feathers). Parry, 2d Voyage, p. 511, “Toward the opposite end of the arrow are two feathers, generally of the spotted owl, not very neatly lashed on;” and Kumlien, Contributions, p. 37, “The feather-vanes were nearly always made from the primaries of Strix scandiaca or Graculus carbo.” The last is the only mention I find of using any feathers except those of birds of prey.

306. Op. cit., p. 266.

307. Compare the passage in Frobisher’s Second Voyage (Hakluyt, 1589, p. 628). After describing the different forms of arrowheads used by the Eskimo of “Meta Incognita” (Baffin Land) in 1577 he says: “They are not made very fast, but lightly tyed to, or else set in a nocke, that upon small occasion the arrowe leaveth these heads behind them.”

308. “In shooting this weapon the string is placed on the first joint of the first and second fingers of the right hand.” (Kumlien, Contributions, p. 37.)

“Beim Spannen wird der Pfeil nicht zwischen Daumen und Zeigefinger, sondern zwischen Zeige- und Mittelfinger gehalten,” Krause Brothers, Geographische Blätter, vol. 5, p. 33.

309. Voyage to the Northern Whale Fishery, p. 187.

310. 2d Voyage, p. 511, and figured with the bow (22) on Pl. opposite p. 550.

311. Parry’s 2d Voyage, Pl. opposite p. 550, Fig. 24.

312. Vega, vol. 2, p. 106.

313. “They buckle on a piece of ivory, called mun-era, about 3 or 4 inches long, hollowed out to the wrist, or a guard made of several pieces of ivory or wood fastened together like an iron-holder.” Voyage, p. 575.

314. This word appears to be a diminutive of the Greenlandic nuek—nuik, now used only in the plural, nugfit, for the spear. These changes of name may represent corresponding changes in the weapon in former times, since, unless we may suppose that the bird dart was made small and called the “little nuik,” and enlarged again after the meaning of the name was forgotten, it is hard to see any sense in the present name, “big little nuik.”

315. History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 148.

316. Crantz, vol. 1, p. 147, and Figs. 6 and 7, Pl. V.

317. Ibid., Fig. 8.

318. Vega, vol. 2, p. 105. Fig. 5.

319. See Crantz’s figure referred to above; also one in Parry’s second voyage, Pl. opposite p. 550, Fig. 19, and Rink, Tales., etc., Pl. opposite p. 12.

320. Prehistoric fishing, Figs. 94 and 95, p. 73.

321. History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 147, Pl. V, Figs. 6 and 7.

322. Tales, etc., Pl. opposite p. 12 (“bladder arrow”).

323. Crantz, vol. 1, p. 146, Pl. V, Figs. 1 and 2, and Rink as quoted above, also Kane, First Exp., p. 478.

324. Parry, Second Voyage, p. 508 (Iglulik); and Nordenskiöld, Vega, vol. 2, p. 105, Fig. 5.

325. Smithsonian Report for 1884, part II, pp. 279-289.

326. Voyage, p. 324.

327. Second Grinnell Exp., vol. 1, Figs. on pp. 412 and 413.

328. Vega, vol. 1, p. 444, Fig. 5.

329. Compare, also, the walrus harpoon figured by Capt. Lyon, Parry’s Second Voyage, Pl. opposite p. 550, Fig. 13.

330. See Kumlien, Contributions, p. 35, and Boas, “Central Eskimo,” p. 473, Fig. 393.

331. Kane, 2d Grinnell Exp., vol. 1, pp. 412 and 413 (Fig. 1), and Bessells, Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 869, Figs. 6-12.

332. Crantz, vol. 1, p. 146, and Pl. V, Figs. 1 and 2, and Rink Tales, etc., Pl. opposite p. 10.

333. 2d Voyage, Pl. opposite p. 550, Fig. 13.

334. Museum collections and Nordenskiöld, Vega, vol. 2, p. 105, Fig. 1. This figure shows the blade in the plane of the barb, but none of the specimens from Plover Bay are of this form.

335. Vega, vol. 2, p. 229, Fig. 3.

336. See the writer’s note on this weapon, American Naturalist, vol. 19, p. 423.

337. Parry, Second Voyage, p. 507, Iglulik.

338. Corwin Report, p. 41.

339. Parry, 2d Voy., p. 512 (Iglulik); Kumlien, Contributions, p. 54 (Cumberland Gulf); Schwatka, Science, vol. 4, No. 98, p. 544 (King Williams Land).

340. Crantz, vol. 1, p. 147, Pl. V, Fig. 5; and Kane, 1st Grinnell Exp., p. 479 (fig. at bottom).

341. Vega, vol. 1, p. 444, Fig. 7.

342. T. Simpson’s Narrative, p. 156.

343. Voyage, p. 574.

344. Vega, vol. 2, p. 109, and Fig. 3, p. 105.

345. Geographische Blätter, vol. 5, pt. 1, p. 32. See also Rosse, Arctic Cruise of the Corwin, p. 34.

346. I learn from our old interpreter, Capt. E.P. Herendeen, who has spent three years in whaling at Point Barrow since the return of the expedition, that a third float is also used. It is attached by a longer line than the others, and serves as a sort of “telltale,” coming to the surface some time ahead of the whale.

347. Op. cit., p. 262.

348. Voyage, pp. 295, 574.

349. Vega, vol. 2, p. 108.

350. Ibid., p. 98.

351. See also the reference to Hooper’s Corwin Report, quoted below under Hunting.

352. See, however, the writer’s paper in the American Anthropologist, vol. 1, p. 333.

353. Vega, vol. 2, p. 117, Fig. 3.

354. Second Voyage, p. 510; also pl. opposite p. 550, Fig. 17.

355. “They first look out for Holes, which the Seals themselves make with their Claws about the Bigness of a Halfpenny; after they have found any Hole, they seat themselves near it upon a Chair, made for the Purpose; and as soon as they perceive the Seal coming up to the Hole and put his snout into it for some Air, they immediately strike him with a small Harpoon.” Egede, Greenland, p. 104.

“The seals themselves make sometimes holes in the Ice, where they come and draw breath; near such a hole a Greenlander seats himself on a stool, putting his feet on a lower one to keep them from the cold. Now when the seal comes and puts its nose to the hole, he pierces it instantly with his harpoon.” Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 156.

356. It is twisted into “a compact helical mass like a watch-spring” in the Hudson Bay region. Schwatka, “Nimrod in the North,” p. 133. See also Klutschak, “Als Eskimo,” pp. 194, 195.

357. “Nimrod in the North,” p. 133.

358. See Gilder, Schwatka’s Search, p. 225; see also, Klutschak, “Als Eskimo,” etc., pp. 194-5, where the whalebones are said to have little knives on the ends.

359. Report, etc., p. 127.

360. See Dr. Rau’s Prehistoric Fishing, p. 12. Fig. 2, p. 13, represents one of these from Norton Sound, and Figs. 3-8, a series of similar implements from the bone caves of France.

361. See Parry, 2d Voyage, p. 547, Iglulik and Hudson Strait, pl. opposite p. 548, Fig. 4, and pl. opposite p. 14; Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 234; Dall, Alaska, p. 195, figure (Norton Sound); also MacFarlane, MS., No. 2929 (Anderson River).

362. Nordenskiöld, Vega, Vol. 2, p. 99.

363. Report U.S. International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, p. 37.

364. Greenland, p. 62.

365. Franklin, 1st Exped., vol. 2, p. 181.

366. 2d Exped., p. 137.

367. Narrative, p. 114.

368. Ibid., p. 138.

369. Science, vol. 4, 9, pp. 543-544.

370. Dr. Richardson believes that the hunting grounds of families are kept sacred among the Eskimo. Searching Expedition, vol. 1, pp. 244, 351. See also, the same author’s paper, New Philosophical Journal, vol. 52, p. 323.

371. Northwest Passage, Appendix, p. 387.

372. Rae, Narratives, etc., p. 135.

373. Klutschak, “Als Eskimo,” etc., p. 131.

374. Dall, Alaska, p. 147.

375. Vega, vol. 2, p. 130. Compare the custom observed in Baffin Land, of sprinkling a few drops of water on the head of the seal before it is cut up, mentioned by Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 573.

376. Contributions, p. 57.

377. Hall, Arctic Researches, pp. 507 and 578, with diagrams.

378. Hooper, Corwin Report, p. 25.

379. Compare Egede, Greenland, p. 102. The whale “can’t bear sloven and dirty habits.”

380. Hall speaks of seeing the angeko “very busy ankooting on the hills”—“To try and get the pack ice out of the bay.”—Arctic Res., p. 573.

381. Compare Rink, Tales, etc., p. 55: “To the customs just enumerated may be added various regulations regarding the chase, especially that of the whale, this animal being easily scared away by various kinds of impurity or disorder.”

382. Alaska, p. 147.

383. Loc. cit., p. 261.

384. Compare Egede, Greenland, p. 102. “When they go a Whale-catching they put on their best Gear or Apparel, as if they were going to a Wedding Feast, fancying that if they did not come cleanly and neatly dressed the Whale, who can’t bear sloven and dirty Habits, would shun them and fly from them.”

See also Crantz, History of Greenland, Vol. I, p. 121. “They dress themselves in the best manner for it, because, according to the portentous sayings of their sorcerers, if any one was to wear dirty cloaths, especially such in which he had touched a dead corpse, the whale would escape, or, even if it was already dead, would at least sink.”

385. See Egede, Greenland, p. 102; Crantz, History of Greenland, Vol. I, p. 121; Parry, 2d. Voy., p. 509 (Iglulik); McClure, Northwest Passage, p. 92 (Cape Bathurst).

386. Von der Lagune aus pflegten jeden Morgen und Abend grosse Entenschaaren über den Ort hinweg nach dem Meere zu fliegen. Dann wurden durch Pfeifen und Schreien die Thiere so geängstigt, dass sie ihren Flug abwärts richteten und nun durch die mit grosser Sicherheit geworfene Schleuder oder durch Flintenschüsse erreicht werden konnten. (East Cape), Krause Brothers, Geographische Blätter, Vol. 5, pt. 1, p. 32.

“The birds were easily called from their course of flight, as we repeatedly observed. If a flock should be passing a hundred yards or more to one side, the natives would utter a long, peculiar cry, and the flock would turn instantly to one side and sweep by in a circuit, thus affording the coveted opportunity for bringing down some of their number.” (Cape Wankarem), Nelson, Cruise of the Corwin, p. 100.

387. Museum number effaced.

388. Vega, vol. 2, p. 110.

389. “Their Lines are made of Whalebones, cut very small and thin, and at the End tacked together.” Egede, Greenland, p. 107. See also, Crantz, vol. 1, p. 95; Dall, Alaska, p. 148; and the Museum Collections which contain many whalebone lines from the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers, collected by MacFarlane, and from the whole western region, collected by Nelson.

390. “Instead of a bait, they put on the hook a white bone, a glass bead, or a bit of red cloth” (when fishing for sculpins). History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 95.

391. Narrative, p. 115.

392. The Greenlanders used a sort of sieve or scoop net, not seen at Point Barrow, for catching caplin (Mallotus villosus). Egede, Greenland, p. 108; and Crantz, vol. 1, p. 95. John Davis, however, says of the Greenlanders in 1586, “They make nets to take their fish of the finne of a whale.” Hakluyt’s Voyages, etc. (1589), p. 782.

393. Dall, Alaska, p. 147; and Petroff, Report, etc., p. 127.

394. Op cit., p. 73.

395. Op cit., p. 142.

396. Vega, vol. 2, p. 109.

397. See the writer’s paper in the American Anthropologist, vol. 1, pp. 325-336.

398. Kumlien’s description (Contributions, p. 37, Cumberland Gulf) would apply almost word for word to this spear, and Captain Parry, (Second Voyage, p. 509) describes a very similar one in use at Iglulik. The “Perch, headed with two sharp-hooked Bones,” for spearing salmon—called in the Grenlandsk Ordbog, kakiak, “en Lyster (med to eller tre Pigge)”—mentioned by Egede (Greenland, p. 108) is probably the same thing, and a similar spear is spoken of by Rae (Narrative, p. 172) as in use at Repulse Bay. A similar weapon, described by Dr. Rink as “Mit einem in brittischen Columbien vorkommenden identisch,” was found in east Greenland (Deutsche Geographische Blätter, vol. 9, p. 234). See the description of the spear found by Schwatka at Back’s Great Fish River (Nimrod in the North, p. 139), also described by Klutschak (Als Eskimo, etc., p. 120).

399. “Their own clumsy method of producing fire is by friction with two pieces of dry wood in the manner of a drill.”—(T. Simpson, Narrative, p. 162.)

400. Dr. Simpson, op. cit., p. 242.

401. Compare Nordenskiöld’s figure of the fire drill in use at Pitlekaj (Vega, vol. 2, p. 121), which has a similar bone for a socket, held not in the mouth but in the left hand.

402. Bessels, Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 867, speaks of a fire drill used at Smith Sound with a bow and a mouthpiece of ivory.

A Greenlander; seen by John Davis, in 1586, “beganne to kindle a fire, in his manner: he took a piece of a boord, wherein was a hole halfe thorow: into that he puts the end of a roũd sticke like unto a bedstaffe, wetting the end thereof in traine, and in fashion of a turner, with a piece of lether, by his violent motion doth very speedily produce fire.”—Hakluyt’s Voyages, etc. (1589), p. 782.

“They take a short Block of dry Fir Tree, upon which they rub another Piece of hard Wood, till by the continued Motion the Fir catches Fire.”—Egede, Greenland, p. 137.

“If their fire goes out, they can kindle it again by turning round a stick very quick with a string through a hole in a piece of wood.”—Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 145.

Lyon (Journal, p. 210) says that at Iglulik they were able to procure “fire by the friction of a pin of wood in the hole of another piece and pressed down like a drill from above.” This was worked with a bow and willow catkins were used for tinder. A man informed them that “he had learned it from his father rather for amusement than for utility; the two lumps of iron pyrites certainly answering the purpose a great deal better.”

“They have a very dextrous Method of kindling Fire; in order to which, they prepare two small Pieces of dry Wood, which having made flat, they next make a small Hole in each, and having fitted into these Holes a little cylindrical Piece of Wood, to which a Thong is fastened, they whirl it about thereby with such a Velocity, that by rubbing the Pieces of Wood one against the other, this Motion soon sets them on fire.”—Ellis, Voyage to Hudsons Bay, p. 234.

A picture of the process is given opposite page 132, in which a man holds the socket, while a woman works the thong (western shore of Hudson Bay, near Chesterfield Inlet).

Rae also mentions a similar drill used in the same region in 1847 (Narrative, p. 187); and there is a specimen in the National Museum, collected by MacFarlane, and said to be the kind “in use until lately” in the Mackenzie and Anderson region.

Dall figures a fire drill with bow and mouthpiece formerly in use at Norton Sound (Alaska, p. 142); and Hooper (Tents, etc., p. 187) describes a similar drill at Plover Bay.

From Nordenskiöld’s account (Vega, vol. 2, p. 121) the fire drill seems to be still generally used by the natives at the Vega’s winter quarters. He says that the women appeared more accustomed to the use of the drill than the men, and that a little oil was put on the end of the drill.

403. Kotzebue’s Voyage, vol. 3, p. 260.

404. Contribution to N. A. Ethnology, vol. 1, p. 82.

405. Compare this with Dr. Simpson’s statement, quoted above, that stones for arrowheads were brought by the Nunatañmiun from the Ku´wûk River.

406. Op. cit., p. 243.

407. Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 867.

408. Journal, pp. 210 and 231.

409. Franklin, First Exped., vol. 2, p. 188.

410. See the writer’s paper on Eskimo bows, Smithsonian Report for 1884, pt. 2, p. 315.

ETHNOLOGICAL RESULTS OF THE POINT BARROW EXPEDITION.

Knives.—

Adzes (udlimau).—

Chisels.—

Whalebone shaves.—

Saws.—

Drills and borers.—

Hammers.—

Files.—

Whetstones (ipiksaun).—

Tool boxes and bags.—

Firearms.—

Whaling guns.—

Bows (pízĭ´ksĕ).—

Arrows.—

Bear arrows.—

Bow cases and quivers.—

Bracers.—

Bird darts.—

Seal darts.—

Harpoons.—

Harpoons.—

Lances.—

Floats.—

Flipper toggles.—

Harpoon boxes (u´dlun or u´blun, literally “a nest.”)—

Nets (ku´bra).—

Seal calls (adrigautĭn).—

Seal rattle.—

Seal indicators.—

Sealing stools.—

Seal drags (uksiu´tiñ.)—

Whalebone wolf-killers (ĭsĭbru).—

Traps.—

Snow-goggles.—

Meat-cache markers.—

The polar bear.—

The wolf.—

The fox.—

The reindeer.—

The seal.—

The walrus.—

The whale.—

Fowl.—

Hooks and lines.—

Nets (Kubra).—

Spears.—

Drills.—

Flint and steel.—

Kindlings.—

The Marline spike.—

Footnotes 273-410

Errors in this section:

ETHNOLOGICAL RESULTS OF THE
POINT BARROW EXPEDITION.