The Greenland Bow. 13 
marlinspike, especially, no doubt, when moist and relaxed, and a strip 
of whalebone might be placed beneath. 
The string is of sinew thread or hide thong, and is furnished at 
either end with a loop which passes over the nock at each end of the 
stave. On the West Coast, a third loop appears to have been used 
when the bow was not in use, to prevent weakening of the stave by 
constant straining 1. 
According to the manner in which the backing is laid on, we may 
distinguish between two main forms of the Greenland backed bow; 
from their distribution among the Eskimo and in accordance with 
Мовросн’з designation, we may term them the ‘‘eastern” and the 
“arctic” forms, of which the former, as regards history of develope- 
ment, is the simpler. 
The Eastern Type. 
Of this we have, again, a simpler, primary type and a more devel- 
oped, secondary form. 
The former is already mentioned by Murpocx (Fig. 1, а)?. The 
backing is fastened by a loop to one nock, and thence passed down 
along the back of the stave, round the other nock and back again, 
etc. though not for any great number of times. The loose end is 
finally wound round the grip of the bow in three transverse lashings 
placed close together, so as to prevent the backing from slipping off 
when the bow is strung. 
It is only found in the southern portions of Baffin Land? and in 
Labrador”. — 
The secondary type has been met with in the Cape York District, 
but hardly seems to have been found elsewhere in Greenland. 
The bow stave is, in this district of the extreme Arctic, where 
wood is scarce, invariably of reindeer antler, and consists as a rule of 
three pieces’, all cut off straight, comprising а grip and two wing- 
pieces, bound together and further secured by splints and lashing of 
sinew thread or thongs (Fig. 1, а). The splints on the inner side are 
short, heavy pieces of bone, those on the back being longer, slighter 
and tapering towards the ends. Outside Greenland, the pieces of the bow 
stave itself are sometimes bevelled off so as to overlap slightly, thus 
rendering splints unnecessary (Fig. 1, a). The wings terminate at their 
outer ends in a nock, over which string and backing are laid. As a 
1 FABRICIUS, Gronl. Landd.-, Fugle- og Fiskef. р. 236. 
2 Murpocu, Esk. Bows, р. 308. 
3 Boas, Centr. Esk., p. 502. 
4 TURNER, p. 246. 
5 Among the Sioux, the Plain Indians par excellence, the poverty of wood has 
lead to bows made in a somewhat similar kind of “buffalo and sheep horn 
and of the antler of the elk’? (Mason, Bows р. 642). 
