352  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
In  his  study  of  Alaskan  needle  cases,  Boas  (1908,  p,  327)  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  flanged  form  characteristic  of  the  Norton 
Sound  region  and  the  winged  form  of  the  east  were  related  in  origin : 
It  seems  to  me  very  plausible  that  the  Alaskan  type  and  the  Eastern  type 
represent  specialized  developments  of  the  same  older  type  of  needlecase,  and 
that  the  flanges  and  diminutive  knobs  of  the  Alaskan  specimens  are  homologous 
to  the  flanges  and  large  wings  of  the  Eastern  specimens. 
Thalbitzer  described  a  needle  case  from  an  old  site  at  Scoresby 
Sound  which  resembles  rather  closely  two  old  specimens  later  found 
at  Point  Barrow  and  described  by  Mathiassen.  Thalbitzer  (1909,  pp. 
476,  477)  considered  that  this  Greenland  needle  case  was  intermediate 
between  the  typical  winged  form  and  the  Western  Eskimo  type : 
Its  form  diverges  a  little  from  that  of  the  latter  [the  fully  developed  winged 
type]  which  was  seen  to  be  particularly  typical  of  the  Greenland  fashion  of 
needle-case ;  but  the  divergence  rather  goes  to  lend  support  to  the  view,  that 
this  somewhat  slenderer  form,  which  in  Greenland  is  only  found  in  the  north- 
east, and  only  in  this  one  specimen,  really  constitutes  a  transition  form  which 
fills  up  the  gap  between  the  Greenland  and  the  West  Eskimo  type  of  this 
implement. 
Mathiassen,  on  the  other  hand,  thought  that  the  prototype  of  the 
winged  needle  case  of  the  east  was  to  be  found  in  the  Alaskan  needle 
case  carved  in  human  form  and  pointed  to  two  old  specimens  from 
Point  Barrow  of  modified  winged  type  which  had  oblique  lines  on 
the  sides  which  he  regarded  as  stylized  representations  of  "  the 
hands  bent  in  front  of  the  body."  (1927,  vol.  2,  p.  94.)  As  for  the 
flanged  Alaskan  type,  Mathiassen  thought  this  to  be  a  local,  special 
form  which  had  no  relation  to  the  winged  type.  Hatt  (1928,  p.  12) 
questioned  the  validity  of  Mathiassen's  theory  of  a  relationship  be- 
tween the  winged  case  and  the  Alaskan  case  in  human  form,  as  did 
also  the  writer,  who  pointed  out  that  the  old  Point  Barrow  specimens 
were  in  fact  intermediate  between  the  winged  eastern  form  and  the 
flanged  Alaskan  type  and  therefore  in  themselves  constituted  evidence 
of  the  relation  between  the  two  forms  as  postulated  by  Boas  (Collins, 
1929,  p.  33).  In  1930  Mathiassen  (1930a,  pp.  62-63)  returned  to 
a  consideration  of  this  problem  and  pointed  to  several  examples  from 
Alaska  which  in  his  opinion  showed  further  evidence  of  the  transi- 
tion from  the  human  "  arms  "  to  the  modified  "  wings  "of  the  Barrow 
type.   In  a  later  publication  (1931,  p.  96)  this  view  was  abandoned. 
If  we  now  consider  the  Old  Bering  Sea  needle  cases,  it  will  be 
seen  that  although  they  display  considerable  variability  as  to  shape. 
