340 



THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



ago discovered. It seems to me that this is merely another ease of ad 

 hering to an obsolete custom on semireligious grounds. The paddles 

 are usually about -i or 5 feet long, made of one piece of driftwood, with 

 slender round shafts, and lanceolate blades about inches broad, and 

 a short rounded cross handle at the upper end. (Fig. 345 shows two 

 of the paddles belonging to the model.) The steersman uses a longer 

 paddle, and stands in the stern or sits up on the head of the stern post. 



Fiu. 345. Model of umiak aud paddles : (a) side view ; (W inside plan. 



Fig. 345 represents the model (No. 56563 [225] from Utkiavwin), 

 which gives a very good idea of the shape of one of these boats. It is 

 quite correct in all its parts, though the timbers are rather too heavy, 

 and there are not so many ribs and floor timbers as in a full-sized canoe. 

 The breadth of beam, 6-2 inches, is at least 1 inch too great in propor 

 tion to the length, 25 inches. The cover is one piece of seal skin which 

 has been partially tanned by the &quot;white-tanning&quot; process, and put on 

 wet. In drying it has turned almost exactly the color of a genuine 



FIG. 340. Ivory bailer for umiak. 



boat cover. The frame, as is often the case with a full-sized boat, is 

 painted all over with red ocher. (See Fig. 345&, inside plan.) 



For bailing these boats a long narrow dipper of ivory or bone is used, 

 of such a shape as to be especially well suited for working in between 

 the floor timbers. Fig. 346 represents one of these (No. 50536 [40] from 

 Utkiavwin). It is a piece of walrus tusk 16-3 inches long. The cavity 

 is 1-1 inches deep and was excavated by drilling vertical holes and 

 cutting away the substance between them. Some of the holes have not 

 been completely worked out. A similar bailer (No. 89835 [1010] also 



