r,30 THE CENTRAL ESKIMO. 



and a half feet apart. They are connected by cros.s bars of wood or 

 bone and the back is formed by deer's antlers with the skull attached. 

 The bottom of the runners (qamun) is curved at the head (uinirn) and 

 cut off at right angles behind. It is shod with whalebone, ivory, or 

 the jawbones of a whale. In long sledges the shoeing (pirqang) is 

 broadest near the head and narrowest behind. This device is very 

 well adapted for sledging in soft snow; for, while the weight of the 

 load is distributed over the entire length of the sledge, the fore part, 

 which is most apt to break through, has a broad face, which presses 

 down the snow and enables the hind part to glide over it without 

 sinking in too deeply. 



Fig 4S3 Sledge shoe (National Museum Wa-shington 34096 ) J- 



The shoe (Fig. 483) is either tied or riveted to the runner. If tied, 

 the lashing passes through sunken drill holes to avoid any friction 

 in moving over the snow. The right and left sides of a whale's jaw 

 are frequently used for shoes, as they are of the proper size and per- 

 mit the shoe to be of a single piece. Ivory is cut into flat pieces and 

 riveted to the runner with long treenails. The points are frequently 

 covered with bone on botli the lower and upper sides, as they are 

 easily injured by striking hard against hummocks or snowdrifts. 

 Sometimes whalebone is used for the shoes. 



The cross bars (napun) project over the runners on each side and 

 have notches which form a kind of neck. These necks serve to fasten 

 the thongs when a load is lashed on the sledge. The bars are fastened 

 to the runners by thongs which pass through two pairs of holes in 

 the bars and through corresponding ones in the runners. If these 

 fastenings should become loose, they are tightened by winding a 

 small thong round them and thus drawing the ojaposite parts of the 

 thong tightly together. If this proves insufficient, a small wedge is 

 driven between the thong and the runner. 



The antlers attached to the back of the sledge have the branches 

 removed and the points slanted so as to fit to the runners. Only the 

 brow antlers are left, the right one being cut down to aboi;t three 

 inches in length, the left one to one and a half inches. This l)ack 

 forms a very convenient handle for steering the sledge past hum- 

 mocks or rocks, for drawing it back when the points have struck a 

 snowdrift, &c. Besides, the lashing for holding the load is tied to 

 the right brow antler and the snow knife and the harpoon line are 

 hung \ipon it. 



Under the foremost cross bar a hole is drilled through each runner. 

 A very stout thong (pitu) consisting of two separate parts passes 

 through the holes and serves to fasten the dogs' traces to the sledge. 



