ML-RDOCH.] FiRKARM S HOWS. 105 



charges of shot at short rirte range (100 to 200 yards). Though they 

 mold their own bullets, I have never known any of them to attempt 

 making shot or slugs. This, which they call kftkrura (little bullets, 

 from kit/km, originally meaning arrow and now used for bullet as well) 

 is always obtained from the whites. The gun is habitually carried in a 

 case or holster long enough to cover the whole gun, made of sealskin, 

 either black-tanned or with the hair on the outside. This, like the 

 bow ease, from which it is evidently copied, is slung across the back 

 by a thong passing round the shoulders and across the chest. 

 This is the method universally practiced for carrying burdens of all 

 sorts. The butt of the gun is on the right side, so that it can be easily 

 slipped out of the holster under the right arm without nnslinging it. 

 Revolvers are also carried slung in holsters on the back in the same 

 way. Ammunition is carried in a pouch slung over the shoulder. 

 They are careless in handling firearms and ammunition. We knew two 

 men who shot off the tip of the forefinger while filing cartridges which 

 had failed to explode in the gun. 



Whaling (/mix. In addition to the kinds of firearms for land hunting 

 above described a number of the natives have procured from the 

 whalemen, either by purchase or from wrecks, whaling guns, such as 

 are used by the American whalers, in place of the steel lance for dis 

 patching the, whale, after it is harpooned. These are of various pat 

 terns, both muzzle and breech loading, and they are able to procure 

 nearly every year a small supply of the explosive lances to be shot from 

 them. They use them as the white men do for killing harpooned whales, 

 and also, when the leads of open water are narrow, for shooting them as 

 they pass close to the, edge of the ice. 



Botcx (pixl kucj. In former times the bow was the only projectile 

 weapon which these people possessed that could l&amp;gt;e used at a longer range 

 than the &quot;dart&quot; of a harpoon. It was accordingly used finr hunting 

 the bear, the wolf, and the reindeer, for shooting birds, and in case of 

 necessity, for warfare. It is worthy of note, in this connection, as 

 showing that the use of the bow for fighting was only a secondary con 

 sideration, that none of their arrows are regular &quot; war arrows&quot; like those 

 made by the Sioux or other Indians; that is, arrows to be shot with the 

 breadth of the head horizontal, so as to pass between the horizontal 

 ribs of a man. Firearms have now almost completely superseded the 

 bow for actual work, though a few men, too poor to obtain guns, still use 

 them. 



Every boy has a bow for a plaything, with which lie shoots small 

 birds and practices at marks. Very few boys, however, show any great 

 skill with it. We never had an opportunity of seeing an adult shoot 

 with the bow and arrow; but they have not yet lost the art of bow- 

 making. The newest boys bows are as skillfully and ingeniously con 

 structed as the old bows, but are of course smaller and weaker. The 

 bow in use among these people was the uuiversal sinew-backed bow of 





