172 Morten P. Porsild. 



the other. But at the same time we find included in the Eskimo arrows for 

 shooting on land a wealth of specialized forms, all designed with a view 

 to the particular animal to be slain or to the method of hunting to be 

 employed. To what extent the specialization in form and use may 

 go, is shown by the peculiar Caribou arrows, pangaligtoq, which 

 I have previously described (see bibliography). But we still lack such 

 detailed information about the employment of the majority of these 

 as might make the form comprehensible. The travellers who came 

 across them in use, were content to call them "arrows," at the best 

 "arrows for shooting on land;" now they are not used any more, and 

 we must be satisfied with the explanation which rests on tradition. 

 Some of the pecuharities in the form will naturally, here also, be due 

 to local conditions: for example quality of material. 



Now, however, in one single Eskimo tribe a whole series of types 

 of weapons occurs, which technologically differ somewhat in their ex- 

 treme points though all have served for hunting the same animal, viz., 

 the sea-otter. Some illustrations are to be found in older works, such 

 as Dall's "Alaska and its Resources," but newer and more copious 

 figures occur in Mason "Aboriginal American Harpoons." In the lite- 

 rature which is accessible to me I have not been able to find further 

 information about the details of their employment, but the figures are 

 so good that I shall venture to try to explain this from their form. 



Before this it is however necessary to refer to the main features 

 of the habits of the prey; they are described, amongst others, by 

 Nelson and Petrof who partially cite the oldest description, that 

 given by Vitus Bering. The sea-otter, Enhydra lutris, is a powerful 

 animal. In a full-grown individual the length of the body may exceed 

 one metre, and the weight may rise to 40 kilograms. Now it is almost 

 exterminated by the indiscriminate, rapacious hunting to which it ha& 

 been subjected, and is confined to quite a small area near the east end 

 of the Aleutian chain, while formerly it was distributed over the whole 

 of the Bering Sea, and far down along the coasts of both continents. 

 Now it is very shy and almost entirely pelagic and may be met 

 with as far as 80 miles from the nearest coast, and may be found asleep 

 in a drifting attitude with its belly upwards; indeed, one may come 

 across the female drifting in this position with her young between her 

 fore-paws. Only rarely does it come up on land on remote skerries, 

 and only in rough weather. Otherwise it takes its rest on drifting kelp, 

 where perhaps also, now, copulation and the birth of the young takes 

 place. Formerly the shores were the normal resting and sleeping place 

 of the animal, and it was not particularly shy. Bering describes the 

 sea-otter as a very pleasant and playful animal, and so easy to hunt 

 that he and his party lived on it while in winter quarters, and he is of 

 the opinion that it would have been easy to tame. 



To-day the animal is shot with long-range rifles from land or a 



