MURDOCH.] ARROWS. 205 



kept hi use froin the superstitious conservatism already mentioned. It 

 is certain that the man who raised a couple of wolf cubs t oi the sake of 

 their fur was obliged by tradition to have a Hint-headed arrow to kill 

 them with. These arrows, we were informed, were especially designed 

 for hunting: &quot; nii nu, &quot; the polar bear, but of course they also served for 

 use against other dangerous game, like tlie wolf and brown bear, and 



FIG. 187. Pile of deer arrow (nutk&fi). 



there is no reason to believe that they were not also shot at reindeer, 

 though the hunter would naturally use his deer arrows first. 



Deer arrows have a long trihedral pile of antler from 4 to 8 inches 

 long, with a sharp thin-edged point slightly concaved on the faces like 

 the point of a bayonet. Two of the edges are rounded, but the third is 

 sharp and cut into one or more simple barbs. Behind the barb 

 the pile takes the form of a rounded shank, ending in a shoulder 

 and a sharp rounded tang a little enlarged above the point. 



No. 72768 [102], Fig. 186e from Utkiavwln, has a pile 3 inches 

 long with two barbs. The pile of No. 89238 [ 1 (52] from the same 

 village is 3 inches long and has but one barb, while that of 

 No. 89241 [162] is 7-8 inches long and has three barbs. The 

 rudely incised figure on the shank of No. 89238 [162] represents 

 a wolf, probably a talisman to make the arrow as fatal to the 

 deer as the wolf is. No. 56588 [13], Fig. 187, is a pile for one of 

 these arrows slightly peculiar in shape, being elliptical in sec 

 tion, with one edge sharp and two-barbed and a four-sided point. 

 The figure shows well the shape of the tang. The peculiarity 

 of these arrows is that the pile is not fastened to the shaft, but 

 can easily be detached. 1 When such an arrow was shot into a 

 deer the shaft would easily be shaken out, leaving the sharp 

 barbed pile in the wound. 



The Eskimo told us that a deer wounded in this way would 

 &quot;sleep once and die,&quot; meaning, apparently, that death would 

 ensue in about twenty-four hours, probably from peritonitis. 

 The bone pile is called nu tkafi, whence comes the name of the 

 arrow, mYtko dliii. We collected ten arrows and three piles of 

 this pattern. No. 89460 [1263], Fig. 188, is a peculiar bone arrow 2 

 pile, perhaps intended for a deer arrow. It is 7 inches long and rm.iss. 

 made of one of the long bones of some large bird, split length .mr, &quot;,&quot; 

 wise so that it is rounded on one side and deeply concave on row i ile - 

 the other, with two thin rounded edges tapered to a sharp point. Each 



Compare the passage in Frobisher s Second Voyage (Ilakluyt. 1589, p. 628). After describing the 

 different forms of arrowheads used by the Eskimo of &quot;Meta Incognita&quot; (lialh n Land) in 1.777 he 

 says: &quot;They are not made very fast, but lightly tyod to, or else set in a uocke, that upon small occa 

 sion the arrowe leaveth these heads behind them.&quot; 



