356 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



by a low wooden rail on each side. Eacli runner is a slice from a single 

 large walrus tusk, with the butt at the back of the sled. Tlie slats, 

 which are pieces of a ship s paneling, are lashed to the upper edge of 

 the runners so as to project about one-half inch on each side. The rails 

 flare slightly outward. The whole is fastened together by lashings of 

 rather broad whalebone, passing through a hole near the upper edge of 

 the runner, a notch in the end of the slat and a hole in the slat inside of 

 the rail. There are two lashings at each end of each broad slat and 

 one in the middle, at each end of the narrow one. The last and the ones 

 at each end of the sled also secure the rail by passing through a hole 

 near its edge, in which are cut square notches to make room for the 

 other lashings. The trace is a strip of seal thong about 5 feet long and 

 one-fourth inch wide, split at one end for about 1 foot into two parts. 

 The other end is slit in two for about 3 inches. This is probably a 

 broken loop, which served for fastening the trace to a dog s harness. 



I do not recollect ever seeing so small a sled in actual use, though Lieut. 

 Eay says he has frequently seen them drawn by one dog. The people 

 who came down from Xuwuk with a small load of things for trade 

 sometimes used a small unia about 3 feet long, with one dog, and the 

 same was often used by the girls for bringing in firewood from the 

 beach. 



A very peculiar sled was formerly used at Point Barrow, but we have 

 no means of knowing how common it was. It was a sort of toboggan, 

 made by lashing together lengthwise slabs of whalebone, but is now 

 wholly obsolete, since whalebone has too high a market value to per 

 mit of its being used for any such purpose. We obtained OIK; speci 

 men about 10 feet long, but it was unfortunately in such a dilapidated 

 condition that we were unable to bring it home. L find 110 previous 

 mention of the use of such sleds by any Eskimo. It is not necessary 

 to suppose that this sled is modeled after the toboggan of the Hudson 

 Bay voyagers, of which these people might have obtained knowledge 

 through the eastern natives, since the simple act of dragging home a 

 &quot;slab&quot; of whalebone would naturally suggest this contrivance. 



We did bring home one small sled of this kind (Xo. 89S75 [772), Fig. 

 359, from Utkiavwln), which from its size was probably a child s toy, 

 though from its greasy condition it seems to have been used for drag 

 ging pieces of blubber. It is made of the tips of small &quot;slabs&quot; of 

 black whalebone, each about 2 inches wide at the broad end, and put 

 together side by side so as to form a triangle 19^ inches long and 9=| 

 wide, the apex being the front of the sled, and the left-hand edge of each 

 slab slightly overlapping the edge of the preceding. They are fastened 

 together by three transverse bands, passing through loops in the upper 

 surface of each slot, made by cutting two parallel longitudinal slits 

 about one-half inch long and one-fourth inch apart part way through, 

 and raising up the surface between them. The hindmost band is a 

 strip of whalebone nearly one-half inch wide, passing through these 



