79 



The bird-spear is used mostly in the spring when the young 

 ducks, still unable to fly, are fluttering and swimming around 

 the rookeries of the rocky coast in great numbers. During this 

 season the hunters make large catches in a short time. 



The Bow and Arrow. 



The bow and arrow have been entirely superseded in Labra- 

 dor by the rifle as a hunting weapon. The specimens obtained 

 for the Museum were used by a party of Eskimo who were 

 cast away on Mansel island for a number of years and forced to 

 the manufacture and use of primitive weapons. 



The bow (Plate XVI f) is what Murdoch calls the "Arctic 

 type," i.e., with a straight shaft and ends curved inward. It is 

 made of fir, reinforced with a single twisted sinew strand at the 

 back. A bow collected by A. P. Low in Labrador (Plate XVI g) 

 has a sinew backing of ten twisted strands, which are looped over 

 the "nosk" at the ends, and gathered in at the middle and the 

 ends by transverse strands. In both bows the bowstring, 

 which is several times heavier than the backing, is attached to a 

 sealskin thong at the ends. The bows are from 32 to 36 inches 

 in length, being fully a foot shorter than similar types among 

 the Alaskan Eskimo. They are 1| inches wide, thicker and 

 slightly rounded at the handle, and flattened and considerably 

 thinned at the ends. 



There are no data at hand to show whether the Labrador 

 Eskimo ever used the antler bow of three pieces bound with 

 sinew found in Baffin island, or the long "Tartar" type, found 

 among the Copper and Alaskan Eskimo. It might be noted 

 that the sinew reinforcement of the Labrador bow is lengthways 

 and not lateral as in some western types. The Labrador Eskimo 

 probably never experienced much difficulty in securing wood for 

 their bows, so were not obliged to adopt splicing of antler and 

 bone. 



The arrows are sound pieces of wood, flattened and notched 

 at the end. The wood at the end is not split to admit the 

 feathers, as in the Alaskan arrow, but they are attached with 

 sinew to each flattened side (see Figure 22). The other end 



