NELSON] ANIMAL FETICHES 439 
took no more in his net during that season, When the bones of a white 
whale have been cleaned of the flesh, the hunter takes them to some 
secluded spot, usually on cliffs fronting the seashore, where dogs do not 
go, and places them there with several broken spearshafts. 
Not far from the village of St Michael is a rocky, shelf-like shelter, 
facing the sea and very @ifficult of access. In this I found over twenty 
white-whale skulls and skeletons, accompanied by numerous broken 
spearshafts, and near by were other smaller but similar deposits. 
The lashings and heads of the spears had been removed, only the 
wooden shafts being left. Usually 
the spears were thrown down singly, 
but in one deposit a half dozen were 
tied together. 
Figure 151, from Aziak or Sledge 
island, is a beautifully made graph- 
ite model of a right whale, eleven 
inches in length. It is deeply ex- 
cavated below and has a hole pass- 
ing through the back to the exca- 
vation within. The mouth and 
blowholes are indicated by grooves 
in the surface; the hole through the 
back serves for attaching a stout 
rawhide cord. 
I was told by the people from 
whom I purchased this object that 
it was used in right-whale fishing as 
akindofcharm. The heavy image, 
hanging to the end of a stout cord, 
is thrown over the flukes or flippers 
of the whale, or across its body, and Fie. 151—Graphite fetich used in right-whale 
draws the cord down into the water Siac o> a 
on the other side. Then the men manage to recover the lower end of 
the cord by reaching below the whale with a long-handle boat hook 
and draw it in to make it fast. 
During the whaling season at Cape Prince of Wales the handles used 
for water buckets are carved to represent the forms of whales, and 
small images of these animals, handsomely carved from ivory, are fre- 
quently attached to the sides of the buckets. These images also figure 
in the winter festivals, at which offerings are made to propitiate the 
shades of those animals. It is with this idea of propitiation that the 
weights used on cords for making fast to whales after they have been 
killed are carved to represent these animals. 
Figure 152 shows a hollow wooden image of a right whale, from the 
Diomede islands, used for storing lancepoints, and supposed to have 
certain occult virtues to aid in giving suecess to the owner. 
