252 SAVAGE WEAPONS AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION.' 



The Eskimo in winter live in dome-shaped houses, called igloos, built 

 of blocks of ice or snow. These blocks are voussoir shaped, so that 

 they make a safe and symmetrical vaulted structure. They are hewn 

 from the bank or field of solidified snow with large knives like Fig. 71, 



made of the bones of whales. Several of 

 these knives were shown in the National 

 Museum and in the Greenland department 



fig. 71.—! Eskimo bone snow-knife. f the Danish collection. Two men, one 

 to cut blocks and one to lay them, will erect a house in two hours. Just 

 above the door a large plate of fresh-water ice is built in so as to illu- 

 minate the interior. Inside is a raised bench of snow, on which are laid 

 sprigs and such scanty vegetation as the summer affords, to support the 

 sealskins which form the bed and bench. The dwellings are sometimes 

 as much as 16 feet in diameter and 8 feet in height. The inevitable 

 lamp is a stone dish with a wick of moss supported in it, and a quan- 

 tity of oil fed from blubber piled upon it. This lamp is at once the 

 warming and cooking stove, the light, the means of drying the clothes 

 and melting the snow for drink, for the whole family occupying the 

 igloo. Above the lamp is the cooking-pot, which also does duty in con- 

 taining snow to be melted for drinking water. Above the ccoking-pot 

 (and by this time we are pretty near the roof) is a net spread to hold 

 wet fur clothes, in order that they may be dried ; after which they are 

 chewed to make them supple. 



Poniards and pike-heads of bones of deer and urus are described by 

 Desor. 116 



One or two other instances of animal material used in knives and 

 daggers may be mentioned before we reach the metallic. The double 

 dagger of the East Indies has two sharpened antelope horns joined at 

 their bases ; or it is a single straight two-ended blade of steel, a circular 

 guard protecting the handle of the weapon, which is intended to strike 

 righl and hit in a crowd. The Sandwich Islanders use daggers (piihita) 

 of wood, held in the middle and having a point at each end. The large 

 mussel shell is the knife of the Fuegian ; the original edge is knocked 

 off* and the solid portion made sharp by grinding upon a stone. The 

 dagger of the IVlew Islanders is the tail bone of the sting-ray, and it 

 is carried in a sheath formed of a joint of bamboo. The Tahitian dag- 

 ger has the tail of the sting-ray as a point ; it comes off in the wound 

 and works deeper and deeper. 



— '~~~'".-M$££& 



Pig. 72.— Indian knife of native copper. 



This brings as to metal, of which we first consider copper. 



The copper knife, Fig. TH, was taken from an Indian mound. It does 



'"' Desor. Translation in Smithsonian Ecport, 1865, p. 358. 



