ABORIGINAL SKIN-DRESSING. 585 



first lingers with the best facility for bearing down, the thumb for 

 guiding, and the last two lingers for pulling the tool back, and at the 

 same time they are protected from injury by the hide beneath. 



The student of technology is at every moment astonished to see how 

 the Eskimo, wherever he sets out to invent, leaves nothing to be de- 

 sired as regards facility. Remember, also, that as we go southward 

 and get away from the walrus, the scraper handle is made of wood, 

 and losing the graceful proportions of its northern relative, grows 

 more and more like the tool of the southern Indians. 



Typical Eskimo scraper handles seem to be divided into two classes, 

 even in the same locality, for which no reason is assigned. 



One class is characterized by an under-cut extending quite sym- 

 metrically across the under side, and the material has some uniformity 

 of thickness, as in a ladle. In most of these the grip descends to 

 its base in the rear almost vertically, and in none of them is there 

 any considerable tail piece. The linger grooves, except in a few aber- 

 rant forms, are extremely shallow, and the outline above much curved. 



The other class is characterized by an under cut which primarily 

 does not extend across the under side. The impression on a soft 

 surface is quite similar to that of a human foot without toes. In 

 some specimens the thumb side of the bottom is notched out some- 

 what, but this has no functional connection with the real under-cut. 



Now, in all the specimens of this type the tail-piece is more or less 

 pronounced. The finger grooves run the whole gamut of profundity, 

 from a shallow groove to deep pockets in which half of each finger 

 is buried. In outline this class is more parallel-sided. 



No literature is at hand upon the subject, but from the manner in 

 which these implements are poised it would seem that they go in 

 pairs, as the jack-plane and smoothing plane, the spoon shaped tool 

 serving for the rough or first process, the flat-bottomed class for finer 

 work in finishing. But this is only guessing. 



Every one who has handled a series of these implements has been 

 astonished at the diminutive hands of the workwomen whohave wielded 

 them. To dress the hide is womau's work, but the men also have small 

 hands. Again, while I have found three left-handed throwing-sticks 

 in a hundred; in more than a hundred scrapers I have never seen one 

 left-handed. 



Scraper blades among the northwestern Eskimo are made from a 

 plano-convex spall of black chert, jasper, etc., kept flat on the under 

 face and chipped into shape on the upper face. The cutting edge is 

 rounded and chisel-shaped, and is usually the broadest part of the blade. 

 The general outline varies from circular, or even a flattened ellipse 

 through infinite varieties, to an oblong parallelogram rounded at either 

 end. Indeed, one and the same blade may be all of these forms at 

 various periods of its existence by a process now to be explained. 



One of the commonest tools in ethnotechnic cabinets is the stone 



