ABORIGINAL AMERICAN HARPOONS. 303 



of iron. It is impossible to conceive of a more excellent illustration 

 of the fading- out of an ancient primitive form and the crradual intro- 

 duction of new elements. 



The bone foreshaft (Cat. No. 72403, U.S.N.M.) of a large whaling or 

 walrus harpoon from Bristol Bay is shown in lig. [)-2. It is the last 

 expression in the use of modern tools for the preparation of a very 

 ancient device. If this be compared with the gash in the end of the 

 Fuegian harpoon, it will be seen that great progress has been made 

 at this particular point. The upper part is carefully turned and the 

 lower part cut with a tenon, so formed that when placed at the end 

 of the shaft the strain in every direction is provided for. Collected 

 by Charles L. M. :^IcKay. 



CONCLUSION. 



The harpoon is the most complicated of the devices invented by 

 uncivilized peoples. In a hemisphere capable of awakening every 

 kind of human wants and needs, furnishing an infinite variety of sup- 

 plies to these from place to place, providing* one sort of materials for 

 the harpoon here and quite another sort there, inhabited by native 

 tribes endowed with great range of genius, it would be expected that 

 a universal weapon should take on eveiy possible form. Just as the 

 whale ship of yesterday, its friend and contemporary, has been replaced 

 by the ship driven by steam, so the Eskimo ut present kills the seal, 

 the walrus, the whale, and the arctic land mammals with a rifle and 

 explosive cartridges instead of the ancient harpoon. Should the 

 Eskimo use his great weapon at all, it will be, as Murdoch shows, to 

 retrieve his game on the edge of the ice after it is shot, and not as a 

 killing device. 



Both the ship and the harpoon served benevolent purposes, since 

 they fostered and stimulated ingenuity until the fullness of time for 

 steamships and firearms arrived. The harpoon is the climax of pierc- 

 ing inventions, which include daggers, lances, spears, javelins, and 

 arrows of all kinds — held in the hand, hurled from the hand, either 

 unaided or with the help of hand rest, amentum or atlatl, or shot from 

 a bow. As was noted in the preceding drawings and descriptions, the 

 harpoon had no limit in its application, being equally efficient on the 

 land, in the air, in the water, or through the ice, at long range or short 

 range, with short or long shaft, in some examples this part a hundred 

 feet in length. The simplest forms have three rude parts; the most 

 highly developed a score or more. Besides its own complexity, it has 

 in the arctic area dominated the kaiak in its upper part, as well as the 

 dress of the man, and called forth an}' number of accessories for 

 decoying, finding, watching, taking out of the water, and carrying 

 home. 



When it is remembered that every part of this complex apparatus 



