INNUITS OF OUR AECTIC COAST. 117 



mail's fabrics. In the lieat of sunimor the ordinary upper dress is discarded, formerly for a 

 light covering of the skins of ducks, and now of some cheap European material. 



Their implements of the chase, till the partial adoption of iirearms, were equally novel 

 and well adapted to their wants, consisting mainly of lances and harpoons of various sizes 

 and shapes, the bow and arrow, and slings, tlie two latter, however, being much less 

 frequently used than the former, and the sling, indeed, scarcely at all, being made in the 

 usual way, and used with stone missiles; their bows were formed with difficully, owing to 

 the scarcity of suitable wood, generally of pieces of bone fastened together with nails, where 

 these could be got, and their chief power derived from sinewy strings drawn across them ; 

 on their missile darts, however, they mainly depended, and these were formed with an ingen- 

 uity, and made with a skill hardly to be expected, considering the scarcity of wood and iron, 

 and remembering the clumsy and intractable character of bone. With these weapons, 

 however, they fearlessh' attack the polar bear, musk ox and wolf, and kill the whale, walrus 

 and seal. Their harpoon dart, of which the length is about six feet and the diameter an 

 inch and a-half, has in all cases an inflated bag attached to it. The upper part is fitted with 

 a movable joint of bone headed with the harpoon, which is also of bone and about five 

 inches long, barbed and pointed with iron. At the butt-end of the shaft are two pieces of 

 whalebone about nine inches long to carry it more steadily in its flight. To these is fixed 

 the rest about two feet long and notched on both sides to procure a firm hold for the thumb 

 and forefinger. A cord al)out fifty feet long hangs from the harpoon, which, after passing 

 through a ring of bone in the middle of the shaft, lies in coils or on a roller on the fore part 

 of the kayack, and is fastened to a bladder or seal skin bag behind the Eskimo in the other 

 end of the kayack. The construction of this dart shows an extreme ingenuity which is not 

 easily described. If the weapon were of one entire piece it would immediately be snapped 

 in two by the wounded animal ; the harpoon, therefore, is made to fiy out of the shaft, 

 which is left floating on the surface while the seal plunges with the harpoon under water, 

 the handle or rest, after imparting a violent impulse to the harpoon, remaining in the hand of 

 the thrower. Their large lance, also about six feet long, is nearly the same as the harpoon, 

 but without the barbs, so that it can be drawn out at once for another stroke. A small lance is 

 used also with a long swordlike point, and another missile dart is used for birds ; this is six 

 feet long also, but lighter and with a point which has only one barb, further down the shaft 

 however, several jagged ribs of bone project which often catch the bird the point has missed. 



The same simple but successful ingenuity is shown in the manufacture of their boats, 

 which are of two kinds, the larger and the smaller ; the large or women's boat " omiak" is 

 sometimes from thirty to forty feet long, from four to five broad and three deep and is 

 narrowed to a point at each extremity, with a flat bottom. It is made of slender bent laths 

 about two inches wide, with longitudinal ribs of whalebone and covered with tanned seal- 

 skin, the ribs run along the sides parallel to the keel, meeting together at the bow and stern 

 and across this light flooring heavier beams are fastened in. Short posts are then fitted to 

 the ribs to support the gunwale ; and as they are liable to be forced outward by the pressure 

 of the transverse seats for the rowers, of which there are ten or twelve, they are bound on 

 the outside by two gunwale ribs and the timbers are not fastened with iron nails, which 

 would soon rust and fret holes in the skin covering, but by wooden pins or whalebone. 

 The Eskimo performs this wcnk without a line or square, taking the proportions with his 

 eye with great accuracy. The only tools which he employs for this and nearly every other 



