256 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
We brought home two specimens of this common object (nigawat- 
otin). No, 89887 [1411], Fig. 250, will serve as the type. The top 
is of spruce, 82 inches long and 103 wide. The upper surface is flat 
and smooth, the lower broadly beveled off on the edges and deeply 
excavated in the middle, so that there are three straight ridges join- 
ing the three legs, each of which stands in the middle of a slight 
prominence. The object of cutting away the wood inthis way is to 
make the stool lighter, leaving it thick only at the points where the 
pressure comes. The large round hole in the middle, near the front, is 
for convenience in picking it up and hanging it on the cache frame, 
where it is generally kept. The three legs are set into holes at each 
corner, spreading out so as to stand on a base larger than the top of 
the stool. Where they fit into the holes they are 0-7 inch in diameter, 
tapered slightly to fit the hole, and then tapering down to a diameter 
of one-third inch at the tip. On the under side of the top they are 
braced with a lashing of stout seal thong. A split on the right-hand 
edge of the top has been mended, as usual, with a stitch of whalebone. 
This stool is quite old and has been actually used. 
No. 89888 [1412], from the same village, is new and a little larger, 
but differs from the type only in having a triangular instead of a round 
hole in the top and no lashing. Those of our party who landed at 
Sidaru September 7, 1881, saw one of these stools hanging up in the 
then vacant village, and there is a precisely similar stool in the Mu- 
seum from the Anderson region. 
MacFarlane, in his manuscript notes, describes the use of these stools 
as follows: “Both tribes kill seals under ice; that is, they watch for 
them at their holes (breathing) or wherever open water appears. At 
the former they generally build a small snow house somewhat like a 
sentinel’s box, on the bottom of which they fix a portable three-cornered 
stool, made of wood. They stand on this and thereby escape getting 
cold feet, as would be the case were they to remain for any time on ice 
or snow in the same immovable position.” Beyond this I find no men- 
tion of the use of any such a utensil, east or west, except in Greenland, 
where, however, they used a sort of one-legged chair to sit on, as well 
as a footstool, which Egede pictures (P1.9) as oval, with very short legs.! 
Seal drags (uksiu'tin.)—Every seal hunter carries with him a line for 
dragging home his game, consisting of a stout thong doubled in a bight 
about 18 inches long, with an ivory handle or knob at the other end. 
The bight is looped into an incision in the seal’s lower jaw, while the 
knob serves for attaching a longer line or the end of a dog’s harness. 
The seal is dragged on his back and runs as smoothly as a sled. We 
They first look out for Holes, which the Seals themselves make with their Claws about the Big- 
ness of a Halfpenny; after they have found any Hole, they seat themselves near it upon a Chair, made 
for the Purpose; and as soon as they perceive the Seal coming up to the Hole and put his snout into it 
for some Air, they immediately strike him with a small Harpoon.’ Egede, Greenland, p. 104. 
‘The seals themselves make sometimes holes in the Ice, where they come and draw breath; near 
such a hole a Greenlander seats himself on a stool, putting his feet on a lower one to keep them from 
the cold. Now when the seal comes and puts its nose to the hole, he pierces it instantly with his har- 
poon.” Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 156. 
