MURDOCH.] WHALE HARPOONS. 237 
through the line hole, doubled in the middle, the two parts are firmly 
stopped together with sinew in four places, and in the ends are cut long 
slits for looping on the floats. When the head is fitted on the foreshaft 
the line is secured to the flat face of the foreshaft by a little stop made 
of a single strand of sinew, easily broken. About 28 inches from the 
tip of the shaft the line is doubled forward and the bight stopped to 
the shaft with six turns of seal thong, so that 
the line is held in place and yet can be easily de- 
tached by a straight pull. The ends are then 
doubled back over the lashing and stopped to 
the shaft with a single thread of sinew. 
Fig. 231 is a toy model of the whale harpoon, 
No. 56562 [233], 18} inches long, made of pine 
and ivory, and shows the manner of attaching 
the floats, which are little blocks of spruce 
roughly whittled into the shape of inflated seal- 
skins. A piece of seal thong 154 inches long 
has its ends looped round the neck of the floats 
and the harpoon-line is looped into a slit in the : 
middle of this line. Fic. 232.—Flint blade for whale 
We collected thirteen heads for such harpoons, harpoon. 
which have been in actual use, of which two have flint blades like the 
one described, two have brass blades, and the rest either blades of slate 
or else no blades. The flint blades are either triangular like the one 
described or lanceolate and are about 3 inches long exclusive of the tang. 
The three separate flint blades which we obtained (Fig. 232, No, 56708 
[114], from Utkiavwin, is one of these, made of black flint) are about 1 
inch shorter and were perhaps intended for walrus har- 
#4 poons, though we saw none of these with flint blades. 
i@ They are all newly made for the market. 
The slate blades of which we collected eleven, some 
old and some new, besides those in the heads, are all 
triangular, with curved edges, as in Fig. 233 (No. 56709 
[139] from Utkiavwin, made of soft purple slate), except 
one new one, No. 566974 [188a], which has the corners 
cut off so as to give it a rhomboidal shape. The cor- 
a 293 Slate blade BEES are sometimes rounded off so that they are nearly 
for whale harpoon. heart-shaped. These blades are usually about 23 inches 
long and 2 broad; two unusually large ones are 3 inches long and nearly 
21 broad, and one small one 2-1 by 1-6 inches, and are simply wedged into 
the blade slit without a rivet. The brass blades are of the same shape. 
The common material for the body seems to have been rather coarse 
whale’s bone, from the rib or jaw. Only two out of the thirteen have 
ivory bodies, and these are both of the newer brass-bladed pattern. The 
body is very long and slender, being usually about 8 or 8} inches long 
(one is 94 inches long) and not over 14 inches broad at the widest part. 
