38.—W hale lan 
) 
Tia. : 
THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
ceremonies long after they have gone out of use in every-day 
life. Now, the whale fishing at Port Barrow, in many respects 
the most important undertaking in the life of the natives, is so 
surrounded by superstitious observances, ceremonies to be per- 
formed, and other things of the same nature as really to assume 
a distinetly religious character. Hence, we should naturally 
expect to find the implements used in it more or less archaic in 
form. That this is the case in regard to the toggle-head I think 
I have already shown. It seems to me equally evident that this 
foreshatt, which contains the loose shaft and foreshaft, undiffer- 
entiated, is also the older form. 
Why the development of the harpoon was arrested at this par- 
ticular stage is not so easily determined. A natural supposition 
would be that this was the form of harpoon used by their an- 
cestors when they first began to be successful whalemen. 
That they connect the idea of good luck with these ancient 
stone harpoons is shown by what occurred at Point Barrow in 
1883. Of late years they have obtained from the ships many 
ordinary “ whale-irons,” and some people at least had got into 
the habit of using them. 
Now, the bad luck of the season of 1882, when the boats of 
both villages together caught only one small whale, was attrib- 
uted to the use of these “irons,” and it was decided by the elders 
that the first harpoon struck into the whale must be a stone- 
bladed one such as their forefathers used when they killed many 
whales. 
In this connection, it is interesting to note a parallel custom 
observed at Pot Hope. Hooper! says that at this place the 
beluga must always be struck with a flint spear, even if it has 
been killed by a rifle shot. 
Lances.—As I have said on a preceding page, some of the na- 
tives now use bomb-guns for dispatching the harpooned whale, 
and all the whaleboats are provided with steel whale lances 
obtained from the ships. In former times they used a large and 
powerful lance with a broad flint head. They seem to have con- 
tinued the use of this weapon, probably for the same reasons 
that led them to retain the ancient harpoon for whaling until 
they obtained their present supply of steel lances, as we found 
no signs of iron whale lances of native manufacture, such as 
are found in Greenland and elsewhere. We obtained nine 
heads for stone lances (kaluwir) and one complete lance, a very 
fine specimen (No, 56765 [537|, Fig. 238), which was brought 
down as a present from Nuwittk. The broad, sharp head is of 
light gray flint, mounted on a shaft of spruce 12 feet 6 inches 
long.’ It has a broad, stout tang inserted in the cleft end of the 
1 Corwin Report, p. 41. 
