MURDOCH. ] WOLF-KILLERS. 259 
often have the ears, roots of the whiskers, nostrils, and outline of the 
mouth incised and blackened, while small blue beads, bits of ivory, or 
wood are inlaid for the eyes. Implements of this sort are in common 
use among Eskimo generally wherever they are so situated as to be 
able to engage in seal-hunting. Mr. Nelson’s collection contains speci- 
mens from as far south as Cape Darby. 
W halebone wolf-killers (istbru).—Before the introduction of the steel 
traps, which they now obtain by trade, these people used a peculiar con- 
trivance for catching the wolf. This consists of a stout rod of whale- 
bone about 1 foot long and one-half inch broad, with a sharp point at 
each end. One of these was folded lengthwise in the form of a Z,! 
wrapped in blubber (whale’s blubber was used, according to our inform- 
ant, Nikawdéalu), and frozen solid. It was then thrown out on the snow 
where the wolf could find and swallow it. The heat of the animal’s body 
would thaw out the blubber, releasing the whalebone, which would 
straighten out and pierce the walls of the stomach, thus causing the 
Fie. 258.—Whalebone wolf-killers. 
animal’s death. Nikawaalu says that a wolf would not go far after 
swallowing one of these blubber balls. 
We collected four sets of these contrivances, one set containing seven 
rods and the others four each. Fig. 258a gives a good idea of the shape 
of one of these. It belongs to a set of seven, No. 89538 [1229], Fig. 258d, 
from Utkiavwin, which are old and show the marks of having been 
doubled up. It is 124 inches long, 0.4 broad, and 0.2 thick. The 
little notches on the opposite edges of each end were probably to 
hold a lashing of sinew which kept the folded rod in shape while the 
blubber was freezing, being cut by thrusting a knife through the par- 
tially frozen blubber, as is stated by Schwatka.? Two of the sets are 
new, but made like the others. 
This contrivance is also used by the Eskimo of Hudson Bay? and at 
Norton Sound, where, according to Petroff,* the rods are 2 feet long and 
wrapped in seal blubber. The name isi/bru appears to be the same as 
the Greenlandic (isavssok), found only in the diminutive isavssorak, a 
provincial name for the somewhat similar sharp-pointed stick baited 
with blubber and used for catching gulls. The diminutive form of this 
‘It is twisted into ‘a compact helical mass like a watch-spring’’ in the Hudson Bay region. 
Schwatka, ‘* Nimrod in the North,” p. 133. See also Klutschak, ‘t Als Eskimo,’’ pp. 194, 195. 
2\‘Nimrod in the North,” p. 133. 
3See Gilder, Schwatka’s Search, p. 225; see also, Klutschak, ‘Als Eskimo,” etc., pp. 194-5, where the 
whalebones are said to have little knives on the ends. 
4 Report, etc., p. 127. : 
