NELSON] 



ANIMAL FETICHES 



439 



took no more in liis net during that season. When the bones of a white 

 whale have been cleaned of the flesh, the hunter takes them to some 

 secluded spot, usually on cliffs fronting the seashore, where dogs do not 

 go, and places them there with several broken spears hafts. 



Not far from the village of St Michael is a rocky, shelf-like shelter, 

 facing the sea and very difficult of access. In this I found over twenty 

 white whale skulls and skeletons, accompanied by numerous broken 

 spearshafts, and near by were other smaller but similar deposits. 

 The lashings and heads of the spears had been removed, only the 



wooden shafts being left. Usually 



the spears were thrown down singly, 

 but in one deposit a half dozen were 

 tied together. 



Figure 151, from Aziak or Sledge 

 island, is a beautifully made graph 

 ite model of a right whale, eleven 

 inches in length. It is deeply ex 

 cavated below and has a hole pass 

 ing through the back to the exca 

 vation within. The mouth and 

 blowholes are indicated by grooves 

 in the surface; the hole through the 

 back serves for attaching a stout 

 rawhide cord. 



I was told by the people from 

 whom I purchased this object that 

 it was used in right-whale fishing as 

 a kind of charm. The heavy image, 

 hanging to the end of a stout cord, 

 is thrown over the flukes or flippers 

 of the whale, or across its body, and 

 draws the cord down into the water 

 on the other side. Then the men manage to recover the lower end of 

 the cord by reaching below the whale with a long-handle boat hook 

 and draw it in to make it fast. 



During the whaling season at Cape Prince of Wales the handles used 

 for water buckets are carved to represent the forms of whales, and 

 small images of these animals, handsomely carved from ivory, are fre 

 quently attached to the sides of the buckets. These images also figure 

 in the winter festivals, at which offerings are made to propitiate the 

 shades of those animals. It is with this idea of propitiation that the 

 weights used on cords for making fast to whales after they have been 

 killed are carved to represent these animals. 



Figure 152 shows a hollow wooden image of a right whale, from the 

 Diomede islands, used for storing lancepoints, and supposed to have 

 certain occult virtues to aid in giving success to the owner. 



FIG. 151 Graphite fetich used in right-whale 

 fishing (about g). 



