290 



REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1900. 



the shaft is a bone pick, attached by a w edge-shaped joint, the bone fitting 

 into a kerf in the wood. The upper part of the pick is bored through 

 for the assembling line. Around the joint is a lashing of baleen, 

 neatly laid on, the assembling line being neatly interlaced with the 

 wrapping. Especial attention is called to the fastening off and the 

 knots on the shaft. The foreshafts of the large Bering Sea harpoons 

 belong to the two quite distinct forms, the spindle-shaped and the 

 conoidal. On the left side of Plate 10 is shown the form and mount- 

 ing of a spindle-shaped loose shaft, and on the right side that of a 

 conoidal form. In this example the projection is on the loose shaft 

 and the socket in the foreshaft. In both forms a hole has been bored 

 through the loose shaft for the assembling line. In these harpoons 

 the heads belong to Murdoch's later type; that is, the blade and line 

 hole are in the same plane, at right angles to the 

 longest diameter of the cross section of the tog- 

 gle head. The blades of these harpoons are of 

 slate, iron, brass, and, in a few specimens, of 

 jade-like material. The toggle head is attached 

 to the main line by means of what Murdoch calls 

 the leader, which is a stout rawhide thong, 1 to 2 

 feet long, passed through the line hole, the two 

 ends being overlapped and seized together; near 

 the head a few turns of fine thong or sinew twine 

 hold the two sides of the loop together, forming 

 a becket. At the other end the leader is spliced 

 into a becket on the end of the line. The line, 

 when the head is ready for action is "done up" 

 on the shaft, the far end being securely tied. 

 When the game is struck, the head is withdrawn, 

 the loose shaft unstripped, the line unrolls, and 

 the shaft acts as a drag. 



An artistic little toggle head of bone and iron 

 from Cape Nome (Cat. No. 4tW:84, U.S.N.M.), on the northern shore of 

 Norton Sound, is shown in fig. 85. Body is somewhat pyramidal, the 

 upper and lower surface being elegantly fluted and ridged. The blade 

 is deltoid, with square butt and slightly convex margins, set deeply into 

 the tapering point of the body in the plane of the line hole and fastened 

 with a bone rivet. The line hole passes straight through the body of 

 the toggle head, the ends being flanked by triangular line grooves. 

 Barbs, two cocked up and flared outward and bounded bj" the orna- 

 mental ridges, which closely follow the outlines of the back and termi- 

 nate gracefully in the tips of the barbs. Butt end a curved plane, 

 upright below and tapering above. 



A cast-iron toggle head (Cat. No. 44747, U.S.N.M.), from Sledge 

 Island, Alaska, just south of Bering Strait, all in one piece — exactly 



Fig. 85. 



TOGGLE HEAD. 



Cape Nome, Alaska. 



Collected by E. W. Nelson. Cat. 



No. iUM, U.S.N.M. 



