181*8. 1 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 169 



A REMARKABLE ESKIMO HARPOON FROM EAST GREENLAND. 



BY JOHN MURDOCH. 



Through the kindness of Dr. H. Rink, of Christiania, the well-known 

 writer on Eskimo ethnology, I have lately received an accurate sketch 

 made by himself of some remarkable harpoons used by the East Green- 

 landers, and brought home by the Danish expedition of 1884-85. A 

 brief description of this peculiar weapon in Dr. Rink's paper on the 

 East Greenlanders {Deutsche Geographische Blatter, ix, 3, p. 233) first 

 called my attention to the subject, and a letter to the author received 

 the usual prompt and courteous attention that Dr. Rink always gives 

 to such applications. 



..■? 



The remarkable thing about the harpoon (Fig. 1)* is that it is an almost 

 exact copy in bone and iron, of the ordinary " toggle-iron " used by 

 civilized whalemen, chiefly, if not exclusively, by Americans. Fig. 



* Fig. 1. Harpoons from East Greenland, sketched by Dr. Rink, a Front view and 

 b side view of one harpoon ; c side view of another. The dotted lines show the posi- 

 tion of the head when " toggled." 



