194 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
ealled akimiyvlin (‘that which has fifteen,” se., shots). The whalers are 
also in the habit of buying up all sorts of cheap or second-hand guns 
for the Arctic trade, so that many other kinds of guns are also common. 
Of breechloaders, we saw the Sharpe’s rifle, savigro/lin (from a fancied 
resemblance between the crooked lever of this gun and the crooked 
knife, savigro’n); other patterns of Winchester; the Spencer repeater, 
kai/psualin (from kaipsi, cartridge); the peculiar Sharps-Hankins, once 
used in the U. 8S. Navy, and which was the favorite weapon of the rebel 
Boers in South Africa; the Peabody-Martini, made in America for the 
Turkish Government, marked on the rear sight with Turkish figures, 
and, exposed with a corpse at the cemetery, one English Snider. The 
regulation Springfield rifles belonging to the post, which were often 
loaned to the natives for the purpose of hunting, were called mitkpa- 
ra/lin (from mtkpara’, book, referring to the breech action, which opens 
like a book). 
They formerly had very few muzzle-loading rifles, but of late years, 
since the law against trading arms to the natives has been construed 
to refer solely to breech-loading rifles, the whalers have sold them 
yiiger rifles, of the old U. S. Army pattern, Enfield rifles, ship’s mus- 
kets with the Tower niark on them, and a sort of bogus rifle made 
especially for trade, in imitation of the old-fashioned Kentucky rifle, 
but with grooves extending only a short distance from the muzzle. 
They of course depend on the ships for their supplies of ammunition, 
though the Nunataimiun sometimes bring a few cartridges smuggled 
across from Siberia. They naturally are most desirous to procure 
cartridges for the rim-fire Winchester guns, as these are not intended 
to be used more than once. They have, however, invented a method of 
priming these rim-fire shells so that they can be reloaded. A common 
“G, D.” percussion cap is neatly fitted into the rim of the shell by 
cutting the sides into strips which are folded into slits in the shell, 
a little hole being drilled under the center of the cap to allow the flash 
to reach the powder. This is a very laborious process, but enables the 
natives to use a rifle which would otherwise be useless. Such car- 
tridges reloaded with powder and home-made bullets—they have many 
bullet molds and know how to use them—are tolerably effective. Great 
care must be taken to insert the cartridge right side up, so that the 
cap shall be struck by the firing pin, which interferes with using the 
gun as a repeater. 
They are very careless with their rifles, allowing them to get rusty, 
and otherwise misusing them, especially by firing small shot from them 
in the duck-shooting season. As a rule they are very fair shots with 
the rifle, but extremely lavish of ammunition when they have a sup- 
ply. The only economy is shown in reloading cartridges and in loading 
their shotguns, into which they seldom put a sufficient charge. In 
spite of this some of them shoot very well with the shotgun, though 
many of them show great stupidity in judging distance, firing light 
