ABORIGINAL AMERICAN HARPOONS. 299 



otter dart from Unalaska. The shaft is of spruce wood; it is light and 

 delicately made, not quite cylindrical, but becoming thicker toward 

 the front. The foreshaft is of whale's bone, thicker where it joins the 

 shaft, tapering smaller towards the front, and expanding at the tip 

 end; flattened a little in cross section. A plug of wood is inserted in 

 the socket at the tip end. The point of ivory has two barbs on one 

 side and one on the other, and an extension or knol) at the butt end, 

 around which the line is fastened by a marlin hitch. The line is of 

 sinew braid or sennit three-ply in the open parts, and six-ply between 

 the martingale and the point. The martingale is tied, one end around 

 the foreshaft and the other a little back of the middle of the shaft, by 

 a clove hitch. 



The shaft has in front a wedge with square front and shouldered in 

 the rear. This wedge fits exactly into a slot in the butt end of the 

 foreshaft. A small piece of birch bark is wrapped around the joint 

 for packing and all the parts seized together very neatly with the 

 finest sinew thread. 



In this example, as in all others of its class, the shaft is painted 

 red; on some of them the paint extends to the foreshaft. On a few 

 examples bands of black paint are added at the butt end. Length of 

 shaft, 42 inches; of foreshaft, Yi inches; of point, 2i inches. 



Feathers on the shaftment or butt end of the shaft, three, set on 

 radially. The nock of this specimen is not unlike the foreshaft in 

 form, only, in place of the notch to fit the bow string, there is a flat 

 cone on the tip end with a small pit on the end to catch into the ivory 

 hook on the foreshaft. By comparing this specimeji with the harpoon 

 arrows in Plates 16 and 17 the student has the best possible oppor- 

 tunity^ of seeing the close kinship between the harpoon and the arrow. 

 It is entirely a matter of propulsion, whether from the hand, from a 

 bow, or from an atlatl or throwing stick. 



Plate 19 (Cat. No. 11362, U.S.N.M.) represents a barbed harpoon 

 with bladder and hand rest. From Kadiak, and collected by Vincent 

 Colyer. 



The shaft is of pine wood, tapering gi^adually from the point to 

 the butt. At the front end the shaft is widened out into a cylin- 

 drical form for about 2 inches and notched in like a spool. Thei'e is 

 no foreshaft in this specimen. The socket for the point is lenticular 

 in cross section and the spool-shaped space is filled with a wrapping 

 of fine sinew braid. The shaft is ornamented with rings and longi- 

 tudinal stripes in black, and the space between the two attachments of 

 the martingale is painted solid black. 



The point is of walrus ivory or hard bone, delicately made. There 

 are two barbs on one side near the butt, which at a side view 

 resemble the hoof of an animal. At the inner margin of one of these, 

 three little dots and lines are added by way of ornament. On the 



