210 



TIIF. POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



tected from being chafed by the. bowstring by a small shield or &quot;bracer&quot; 

 of bone or horn, strapped on with a thong. We never saw these in use, 



as the bow is so seldom employed except by 

 the children. Two of these, newly made, 

 were offered for sale. I will describe one of 

 these, Xo. S!410/&amp;gt; [1233], Fig. 1!3. 



It is of pale yellow mountain sheep horn, 

 convex on the outer face and concave on the 

 inner and considerably arched lengthwise. 

 In the. middle are two straight longitudinal 

 FIG. 193. Bracer. narrow slots, which serve no apparent pur 



pose except ornament. The short slot near the edge at the middle of 

 each side, however, is for the thongs which strap the bracer to the wrist. 

 One of these is short and made into a becket by fastening the ends 

 together with double slits. One end of the other is passed through 

 the slot, slit, and the other end passed through this and drawn taut. 

 A knot is tied on the free end. This thong is just long enough to fasten 

 on the bracer by passing round the wrist and catching the knot in the 

 loop opposite. The other, No. 8941 Ort [1233], is like this, but 1 inch 

 shorter and nearly Hat. The arch of the specimen figured is probably 

 unintentional and due to the natural shape of the material, as it does 

 not lit well to the wrist. It is probable that these 

 people used a Hat bracer, as Fig. 1!)4, No. S9350 

 [l. !S2], from Utkiavwlfi, is apparently such an im 

 plement. It is a thin elliptical plate of hard bone, 

 2 inches long and 11 wide, with two rows of holes 

 crossing at right angles in the middle. The holes 

 at the side were probably for the thong and the 

 others for ornament, as some of them go only part 

 way through. Four small pebbles are lodged in the 

 tour holes around the center in the form of a cross. 

 Mr. Nelson collected several specimens of bracers 

 from Kotzebue Sound and St. Lawrence Island. 

 These are all slightly larger than our specimens, 

 and bent round to fit the wrist. They are of bone 

 or copper. When Beechey visited Kotzebue Sound, 

 in 1820, he found the bracer in general use. 1 I lind 

 no other mention of this implement in the writers who have described 

 the Eskimo. 



Bird darts. For capturing large birds like ducks or geese, sitting 

 on the water, especially when they have molted their wing feathers so 

 as to be unable to escape by Hight, they use the universal Eskimo 

 weapon, found from Greenland to Siberia, namely, a dart with one or 

 more points at the tip, but carrying a second set of three ivory prongs 



FIG. 194. Bracer of bone. 



1 &quot; They buckle on a piece of ivory, called man-era, alnmt 3 or 4 inches long, hollowed out to the wrist, 

 or :i guard made of several pieces of ivory or wood fastened together like an iron-holder.&quot; Voyage, 

 p. 570. 



