349 



part of both a cutting and scraping instrument in the mailing 

 of apparatus. For boring, on the other hand, there is still 

 used the Eskimo drill with a bone mouth-piece, the bow being 

 usually formed of a seal's rib and a skin thong, and the point 

 is now always of metal. 



It is in fact a point of no little cultural interest from the 

 historical side to make clear, what European apparatus can be 

 absorbed by a strange culture. We see very clearly among 

 the Polar Eskimos, that they have chosen the apparatus, which 

 for them meant a reduction of labour in their old modes of 

 procedure. But they have still held fast to their old methods 

 and the old forms, in so far as they were not obliged to 

 modify them in using the new apparatus. 



The Polar Eskimos are thus to a certain extent still people 

 of the stone-age, who are employing the help yielded by the 

 modern mechanical methods, without adopting the mental ac- 

 companiments. For them iron is a material of similar kind to 

 bone, and they deal with bone and metal in quite the same 

 manner, with the file. 



1 found an interesting example of this in a harpoon-point 

 (fig. 34) of the Polar Eskimo Manigssok ; every part of it had 

 been filed out of a massive piece of iron. As a rule only the 

 point is of iron, whilst the head-piece is of filed bone (cf. 

 fig. 35, which likewise shows the second of the two forms of 

 harpoon-points common among the Polar Eskimos; it is used 

 for the white whale and narwhal, whilst fig. 34 is for the walrus 

 and seal). The iron point, fig. 34 , is in all details an exact 

 copy of the commonly used form. It is likewise a witness of 

 the surprising, technical skill of the Polar-Eskimos, as with- 

 out any other assistance whatsoever, with the file in the 

 right hand and the object in the left, they are able to make 

 such a uniform and faultless implement. During the work they 

 support the left hand on the knee or the thigh, but there is 

 no talk of making measurements or of copying from something 



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