MURDOCH. ] ARROWS. 205 
kept in use from the superstitious conservatism already mentioned. It 
is certain that the man who raised a couple of wolf cubs for the sake of 
their fur was obliged by tradition to have a flint-headed arrow to kill 
them with. These arrows, we were informed, were especially designed 
for hunting “ nii/nu,” the polar bear, but of course they also served for 
use against other dangerous game, like the wolf and brown bear, and 
2D 
Fic. 187.—Pile of deer arrow (nfitkai). 
there is no reason to believe that they were not also shot at reindeer, 
though the hunter would naturally use his deer arrows first. 
Deer arrows have a long trihedral pile of antler from 4 to 8 inches 
long, with a sharp thin-edged point slightly concaved on the faces like 
the point of a bayonet. Two of the edges are rounded, but the third is 
sharp and cut into one or more simple barbs. Behind the barb 
the pile takes the form of a rounded shank, ending in a shoulder 
and a sharp rounded tang a little enlarged above the point. 
No. 72768 [162], Fig. 186e from Utkiavwin, has a pile 34 inches 
long with two barbs. The pile of No, 89238 [162] from the same 
village is 34 inches long and has but one barb, while that of 
No. 89241a [162] is 7-3 inches long and has three barbs. The 
rudely incised figure on the shank of No, 89238 [162] represents 
a wolf, probably a talisman to make the arrow as fatal to the 
deer as the wolf is. No. 56588 [13], Fig. 187, is a pile for one of 
these arrows slightly peculiar in shape, being elliptical in sec- 
tion, with one edge sharp and two-barbed and a four-sided point. 
The figure shows well the shape of the tang. The peculiarity 
of these arrows is that the pile is not fastened to the shaft, but 
can easily be detached.!’ When such an arrow was shot into a 
deer the shaft would easily be shaken out, leaving the sharp 
barbed pile in the wound. 
The Eskimo told us that a deer wounded in this way would 
“sleep once and die,” meaning, apparently, that death would 
ensue in about twenty-four hours, probably from peritonitis. 
The bone pile is called nt’tkan, whence comes the name of the 
arrow, ni/tko’/dlin. We collected ten arrows and three piles of 
this pattern, No.89460 [1263], Fig. 188, is a peculiar bone arrow 
pile, perhaps intended for adeer arrow. It is 7 inches long and Fig. 188.— 
made of one of the long bones of some large bird, split length- qua = 
wise so that it is rounded on one side and deeply concave on 7W Pile- 
the other, with two thin rounded edges tapered to asharp point. Each 
1Compare the passage in Frobisher’s Second Voyage (Hakluyt, 1589, p. 628). After describing the 
different forms of arrowheads used by the Eskimo of ‘‘ Meta Incognita” (Baffin Land) in 1577 he 
says: ‘They are not made very fast, but lightly tyed to, or else set in a nocke, that upon small occa- 
sion the arrowe leaveth these heads behind them.” 
