GRAPHIC ART OF THE ESKIMOS. 839 



Museum are, in reality, handles for carrying tool and other bags. The 

 Point Barrow collection contains four such bags, and as Mr. Murdoch s 

 description is short and to the point, I can not do better than to quote 

 him. He says : 



These bags are always made of skin with the hair out, and the skins of wolver 

 ines heads are the most desired for this purpose. 1 [Fig. 47.] 



The bottom of the bag is a piece of short-haired brown deerskin, with the hair 

 out, pierced across the middle. The sides and ends are made of the skins of four 

 wolverine heads, without the lower jaw, cut off at the nape and spread out and 

 sewed together side by side with the hair outside and noses up. One head comes to 

 each end of the bag and each side, and the spaces between the noses are filled out 

 with gussets of deerskin and wolverine skin. A narrow strip of the latter is sewed 

 round the mouth of the bag. The handle is of walrus ivory, 144 inches long and 

 about one-half inch square. There is a vertical hole through it one-half inch from 

 each end, and at one end also a transverse hole between this and the tip. One end 

 of the thong which fastens the handle to the bag is drawn through this hole and cut 

 oft close to the surface. The other end is brought over the handle and down through 

 the vertical hole and made fast with two half stitches into a hole through the 

 septum of the nose of the head at one end of the bag. The other end of the handle is 

 fastened to the opposite nose in the same way, but the thong is secured in the hole 

 by a simple knot in the end above. On one side of the handle is an unfinished 

 incised pattern. 



Many of these bag handles are decorated on two, three, or even all four 

 sides, when they are so fashioned, although some are convex above, as 

 well as below, leaving but two sides upon which to engrave anything. 



Another variety of decorated handles are those used in small bags, 

 meaning but one-quarter the size of the one above described. 



In addition to the incised ornamentation, both decorative and his 

 torical or mythologic, many of the small bag handles are carved with 

 whale flukes, bear heads, seal heads, and other objects, as will be 

 found upon examining various illustrations in the present paper. 



DECOKATION OF ANIMAL CARVINGS. 



As in the preceding methods of decorating ornaments, various animal 

 carvings, effigies, toys, etc., are also ornamented, the artistic efforts 

 being directed, in many instances, to heighten the resemblance to the 

 prototype selected. Thus are attempted the indication of spots, stripes, 

 and scales upon animals and fish, the results being often very clever. 



Plate 5$* fig. 1, shows a specimen which was obtained at Sledge 

 Island. It is a very ornamental handle for packages or bags, to either 

 end of which is attached a short chain. One of these chains terminates 

 in a seal head. The links were cut from the same piece as the handle 

 itself. The separate attachments to which the package is fastened 

 consist of two small swivels, or pins, perforated below assd terminating 

 on top in carved seal heads, the ears, eyes, nostrils, and mouth of which 

 are clearly indicated. The ornamentation upon the top of the handle 

 consists of four small characters of the primary form of decoration 



1 Ninth Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1887-88. 1892, pp. 187, 188, fig. 166. 



