ABORIGINAL AMERICAN HARPOON8. 287 



Area 2. The centrul Eskimo of Boas. 



Area 8. The arctic Eskimo, from the mouth of the Mackenzie River, 

 including Point Barrow and Kotzebue Sound. 



Area 4. The Bering Sea Eskimo, inchuling Bering Strait southward 

 to Norton Sound, the lower Yukon, Nunivak Island and the mainland, 

 Bristol Bay, and Kadiak. 



BAST GREENLAND HARPOONS. 



In this seeming]}^ out-of-the-world location the harpoon is far from 

 its original form. All specimens are toggled and iron enters surpris- 

 inglv into their composition. Holm (1887) figures the ditferent varie- 

 ties in his Plates 15, 16, 29, 80, 32, 33. 



The hinged lance is here also with shaft of wood, having hand rests 

 on the sides, assem))ling lines of rawhide to hold the parts together. 

 and foreshaf t with flat top, from the middle of which a short cone pro- 

 jects. Some lances have, instead of hand rests for thrusting or hurl- 

 ing from the hand, the throwing stick or ajagsick. The head of the 

 hinged lance consists of three parts, the iron blade (1), set in a shank 

 of ivory (2), and this is fastened into a block of the same material (3), 

 with Hat base, in the center of which is a cavity just fitting over the 

 cone on the top of the f oreshaf t. This block is hinged to the f oreshaf t 

 by means of elastic rawhide thongs piercing it and the shaft ^ (fig. 23). 



The plainest variety of east Greenland has a wooden shaft, with 

 chisel-shaped ice pick at the end. The toggle head is of bone or ivory, 

 with iron blade, flat, cone-shaped body, two line holes quite through 

 the body, united by a groove on the back, into which the line sinks. 

 The shaft socket is in the center of the base, two wing-like bar])s flanking 

 it. The complete sealing harpoon is modeled after that of west Green- 

 land, having ej^elets instead of hooks for the throwing stick, and being 

 covered all over with little figures of animals, reminding one slightly 

 of the Aleutian hat and the bark onlaying of the Amur people. 



The barbed leisters or fish spears, with two or more barbs, are turned 

 by these Eskimo into a toggle arrangement quite unique in America. 

 The piercing ends are of iron or bone and hinged as in a pair of scis- 

 sors, the cutting end piercing the animal, the other end lying against 

 the shaii4c. When they have entered the flesh these points turn at right 

 angles and toggle.^ A most curious device is the adaptation of this 

 hinged head to a seal harpoon, provided with a little sled on the fore 

 end of a very long shaft. It will be seen later on that the west Green- 

 landers use for deep-sea fishing for seals a very long shaft worked by 

 two men, and that the Giliaks make a harpoon shaft nearly a hundred 

 feet long, with a float on the fore end.^ 



1 Holm, East Greenland, 1887, pi. xv. 



^Idpm., pi. XV, (( and }>. 



^Schrenk, Reisen und F<)rscliuii<rfn in Aniurliinde, 1881, p. 546. 



