HruDocn.] 



FIHKARMS. 



193 



PROJECTILE WEAPONS. 



Firearms. When Dease and Simpson first met these people, in 1837, 

 they had no firearms, but the next party of whites whoeame in contact 

 with them (Pullen and Hooper, in 1849) found the &quot;chief&quot; in possession 

 of an old shaky musket of English make, with the name &quot;Barnett&quot; on 

 the lock. 1 Hooper believed this to be the gun lost by Sir John Frank 

 lin s party in 1826. 2 This gun was, however, often seen by the people 

 of the Plover (in fact, Capt. Maguire kept it on board of the Plover for 

 some time 3 ), and was found to have on the lock, besides the name &quot; Bar 

 nett,&quot; also the date, &quot;1843,&quot; so that of course it was not lost in 182(5. 

 Armstrong 4 also mentions seeing this gun, which, the natives told him, 

 they had procured &quot;from the other tribes to the south 

 ward.&quot; In the summer of 1853 they began to purchase 

 guns and ammunition from the eastern natives. Yukslua 

 and two other men each bought a gun this year. 5 



As the whalers began to go to Point Barrow in 1854, 

 the opportunity for obtaining firearms has been afforded 

 the natives every year since then, so that they are now 

 well supplied with guns, chiefly of American manufacture. 

 That all their firearms have not been obtained from this 

 source is probable from the fact they have still in their 

 possession a number of smoothbore percussion guns, 

 double and single barreled, of Russian manufacture. 

 They are all stamped in liussian with the name of Tula, 

 a town on the Oopa, 105 miles south of Moscow, which 

 has received the name of the &quot; Sheffield and Birmingham 

 of Russia,&quot; from its vast manufactory of arms, established 

 by Peter the Great. These guns must have come from FIG. i76.-So.caiied 

 the &quot;Nunatafimiun,&quot; who obtained them either from (1 sK cr of l &amp;gt; n &quot;- 

 the Siberian traders or from the Russians at Norton Sound through 

 the Malemiut. Both smoothbore and rifled guns are in general use. 

 The smoothbores are of all sorts and descriptions, from an old flintlock 

 musket to more or less valuable single and double percussion fowling- 

 pieces. Three of the natives now (1883) have cheap double breechloaders 

 and one a single breechloader (made by John P. Lovell, of Boston). 

 Guns in general are called &quot; cup un,&quot; an onomatopoeic word in general 

 use in western America, but many of the different kinds have special 

 names. For instance, a double gun is called madro lln (from madro, tico). 

 The rifles are also of many different patterns. The kind preferred by 

 the natives is the ordinary Winchester brass-mounted 15-shot repeater, 

 which the whalers and traders purchase cheaply at wholesale. This is 



1 Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 239. 



2 Franklin, 2d Exp., p. 148. In the hurry of leaving liarter Island &quot;one of the crew of the Heliancc 

 left his gun and ammunition. 



3 See McClnre s N. W. Passage, p. 390. 



4 Narrative, p. 109. 



6 Maguire, Further Papers, p. 907. 

 9 ETH 13 



