252 THK POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



end. The, line, is then detached from the, plummet and fastened to one 

 upper corner of the net, and a second line is let down through the other 

 small hole and made, fast in the same way to the other upper corner. 

 By pulling on these, lines the net is drawn down through the middle and 

 stretched like a curtain under the ice, while a line at the middle, serves 

 to haul it up again. The eiid lines are but loosely made fast to lumps 

 of ice, so that when a seal strikes the net nothing hinders his wrapping 

 it completely around him in his struggles to escape. When the hunter, 

 who is usually watching his net, thinks the seal is sufficiently entangled 

 he hauls him up through the large hole and sets the net again. 



I had no opportunity of observing whether any weights or plummets 

 were used to keep down the lower edge of the net. These nets are now 

 universally employed, but one native, spoke of a time &quot;long ago&quot; when 

 there were no nets and they captured seals with the, spear (ii ius) alone. 

 The net was used in seal catching in Dr. Simpson s time, though he 

 makes but a casual reference to it, 1 and Beechey found seal nets at 

 Kotzebue Sound in 1826. 2 The net is very generally used for sealing 

 among the, Eskimo of western America and in Siberia. We observed 

 seal nets set with stakes along the shore of the sandspit at Plover Bay, 

 and Nordenskiold speaks of seal nets &quot; set in summer among the ground 

 ices along the shore,&quot; 3 and at open leads in the winter, but gives 110 

 description of the method of setting these nets beyond mentioning the 

 &quot;long pole which was used in setting the net,&quot; 4 as none of his party 

 ever witnessed the seal fishery. 5 [ am informed by Mr. W. H. Dall that 

 the winter nets in Norton Sound are not set under the ice as at Point 

 Barrow, but with stakes in shoal water wherever there are open holes 

 in the ice. &quot; Ice nets&quot; are spoken of as in use for sealing in Greenland, 

 but I have been able to find no description of them. As they are not 

 spoken of by either Egede or Crantz I am inclined to believe that they 

 were introduced by the Europeans. 6 Mr. L. M. Turner informs me that 

 such is the case at Un-gava Bay on the southern shore of Hudson 

 Strait, where they use a very long net set under the ice very much as 

 at Point Barrow. I can find no mention of the use of seal nets among 

 any other of the eastern Eskimo. 



It is well known that seals have a great deal of curiosity, and are 

 easily attracted by any unusual sounds, especially if they are gentle 

 and long-continued. It is therefore easy to entice them into the nets 

 by making such noises, for instance, gentle whistling, rattling on the 

 ice with the pick, and so forth. Two special implements are also used 

 for this purpose. The first kind I have called: 



l Op. cit., p. 262. 



Voyage, pp.295, 574. 



3 Vega, vol. 2, p. 108. 



Ibid., p. 98. 



5 See also the reference t* Hooper s Corwin Report, quoted below under Hunting. 



8 See, however, the writer s paper in the Aineriean Anthropologist, vol. 1, p. 333. 



