NO. 14 PREHISTORIC ART OF ALASKAN ESKIMO COLLINS 25 



closed slots for lateral blades ; c is of bone. It has an open socket and 

 a bifurcated terminal barb; it is broken on the right side and may 

 originally have had an additional smaller barb. The slot for the side 

 blades passes completely through. An interesting feature — not shown 

 in the photograph — is that on both sides along the sharp edge opposite 

 and below the blade slot are additional grooves. The upper groove is 

 2 mm. deep and 17 mm. long and below it are two still smaller tri- 

 angular depressions. All of these seem too shallow to have held stone 

 or shell blades, and since there was originally a serviceable blade in the 

 larger central slot these side grooves were probably only ornamental. 

 The decoration consists of a few rather carelessly incised lines. 



The harpoon head, d, has an open socket and a slot for side blades 

 like c, and one of these, a semi-circular piece of slate with a sharp 

 edge, remains in place. As in c, there are also two additional grooves 

 on the sides opposite the blade slot, and these are so shallow that there 

 can be no doubt but that they are ornamental. The decoration, while 

 almost as meagre as on the preceding specimen, is more neatly applied. 

 It consists of a pair of converging straight lines within which are two 

 Y-shaped figures. 



The three points to bird darts illustrated in e, f, and g are typical of 

 Punuk Island and Cape Kialegak. The characters that mark the type 

 are the three barbs on one side and two on the other ; two lines down 

 the center or just at the base of the barbs ; a curving, sharpened base ; 

 a rectangular line slot near the barb ; and two or three small notched 

 projections along one edge near the base. This last feature is of 

 especial interest since it is present as a decorative motive in modern 

 Alaskan Eskimo art (see pi. 18, c). 



In h is shown a piece of a box handle bearing a simple but pleasing 

 pattern of large Y-shaped figures with dots at their bases, enclosed 

 within two parallel lines. 



In i is shown the end of an object of the type shown on plate 13, c, 

 and plate 14. It bears a typical Punuk design of lines terminating in 

 dots and with short cross lines forming small rectangular spaces. 



The object shown in / is a fragtnent of an elaborate wrist guard 

 from Gambell. If we may judge from a similar complete specimen 

 from the same locality, this had a second wing curving in the opposite 

 direction. While the lines follow the contour, the design is very similar 

 to that of plate 13, g, except for the addition of long sharp spurs 

 attached to the pairs of short cross lines. 



Examples of carving in the round were extremely rare among the 

 finds from Punuk Island. That these Eskimo were capable of excel- 

 lent workmanship along this line, however, is shown by the remarkable 



