NELSON] IMPLEMENTS OF VARIOUS KINDS 75 



drift material from about the place where nets or fish traps are set in 

 rivers or small streams. 



ROOT PICKS 



Small picks, made from bone or ivory, with wooden handles, are used 

 by the women for digging the edible bulbous roots of a species of grass 

 which grows on the plains from the Kuskokwim northward to Bering 

 strait. 



Figure 3, plate xxxmfr, illustrates one of three picks from Norton 

 sound. It has a flat, wooden handle with two large scalloped incisions 

 near the butt to aid in grasping with the hand ; it is grooved and pierced 

 by two holes. The pick is made from a long, pointed, slender rod of 

 walrus ivory, held in position against a groove along the front of the 

 handle by rawhide lashings which pass through the holes. 



Figure 1 of the same plate shows a pick obtained on Nunivak island 

 by Doctor Ball. It has a rounded, wooden handle, with a knob-like 

 head, flattened in front to receive the pick and pierced by two holes for 

 lashings. The pick is half of a walrus tusk, and its flattened side is 

 bound against the front of the handle by rawhide lashings passing 

 through two holes in the handle and two corresponding holes in the pick. 



Figure 2, from Cape Nome, is a small ivory handle for a root pick, 

 grooved along the front to receive the pick and pierced by two holes 

 for binding it in position ; a third hole, midway of the lower side of the 

 handle, is intended for another lashing, to form a brace on the lower 

 part of the pick. 



BONE BREAKERS 



For the purpose of breaking large bones in order to extract the 

 marrow, stone implements are used. These in some cases are simply 

 hammer-like stones, used without handles, but they are frequently 

 of very hard stone, ground to a smooth polish and fastened by thongs 

 to a short handle of wood or other material. 



Plate xxxix, 3, represents a small hammer-shape bone breaker of pec- 

 tolite from Cape Nome. It is somewhat oblong in cross section, with 

 rounded corners. The sides are smoothly polished, but the ends are 

 battered and worn down by use. 



At Point Hope there was seen a handsome stone breaker of clear 

 white quartz. It weighed about a pound and a half and was polished 

 to four very regular surfaces, with the corners somewhat rounded, 

 and was secured to a wooden handle by a rawhide lashing. 



FIRE-MAKING IMPLEMENTS 



The method of obtaining fire, common to so many savage races, 

 from the heat developed by the friction of a stick worked with great 

 rapidity on a piece of soft wood by means of a cord, was found in 

 common use among the Eskimo throughout the region visited, and the 



