372 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



whale s tails, one on each side, with the flukes turned from him. The 

 one on his left is attached to his waist by a straight line from its upper 

 corner. At its right hand are a number of objects irregularly grouped. 

 At the top an umiak with five men towing at a three-cornered object, 

 which probably represents a dead whale; then a smaller umiak con 

 taining five men and apparently &quot;fast&quot; to a whale, which is spouting. 

 A figure above this, almost obliterated, appears to be a small whale. 

 Below are a large seal, three of the cross-shaped figures, four small 

 whales, and one figure so much effaced that it can not be made out. On 

 the left hand of the figure are two umiaks, and a whale with a line and 

 float attached to him, then four crosses and a large seal in the corner. 

 Below are four whales of different sizes, two bears, and a dog or wolf. 



These gorgets appear to have gone out of fashion, as we saw none 

 which were not very old, or which appeared to have been used recently. 

 From the nature of the figures upon them, they were probably used in 

 some of the ceremonies connected with the whale fishing. Kika migo 

 may be the &quot;divinity&quot; who controls the whales and other sea animals. 1 



Mechanical contrivances. In one of the performances which Capt. 

 Ilerendeen witnessed, there stood in the middle of the floor facing each 

 other, the stuffed skins of a fox and a raven. These were mounted on 

 whalebone springs and moved by strings, so that the fox sprang at the 

 raven and the raven pecked at the fox, while the singing and dancing 

 went on. These animals were never offered for sale, but they brought 

 over a stuffed fox very cleverly mounted so as to spring at a lemming, 

 which by means of strings was made to run in and out of two holes in 

 the board on which the fox was mounted. (Xo 89893 [1378] from 

 Utkiavwifi.) We unfortunately did not learn the story or myth con 

 nected with this representation. 2 It was the skin of an Arctic fox in 

 the summer pelage, with the paws and all the bones removed, and clum 

 sily stuffed with rope yarn, not filling out the legs. A stick was thrust 

 into the tail to within about two inches of the tip, so that it was curled 

 up over the back. The skin was taken off whole by a single opening 

 near the vent, which was left open, and through which was thrust into 

 the body a strip of whaleboiie 2 inches wide and about J inch thick, 

 which protruded about 4J inches and was fastened to the front edge of 

 the hole by tying the flap of skin to the whalebone with three or four 

 turns of sinew braid, kept from slipping by a notch in each edge of the 

 whalebone. 



The fox was attached to a piece of the paneling of a ship s bulkhead, 

 29 inches long and 7-5 wide, by bending forward 2J inches of the end 

 of the whalebone, and lashing it down parallel to the length of the 

 board with four turns of stout thong, kept from slipping by a notch in 

 each edge of the whalebone and running through holes in the board. 



Cf.Crmrtz.voI. l,p.206. 



3 This very interesting specimen was unfortunately destroyed by moths at the National Museum 

 after the description was written, but before it eould be figured. 



