286 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
inquiries about it. From its shape it would appear as if it were meant 
to be set in a stream with the mouth towards the current. This con- 
trivance is called sapotin, which corresponds to the Greenlandic saputit, 
a dam for catching fish. 
From all accounts, the natives east of the Anderson River region were 
ignorant of the use of the net before they made the acquaintance of the 
whites,! though they now use it in several places, as in Greenland and 
Labrador. Theearliest explorerson the northwest coast, however, found 
both fish and seal nets in use, though, as I have already mentioned, the 
seal net was spoken of at Point Barrow as a comparatively recent in- 
vention. At the present day, nets are used ali along the coast 
from the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers (see MacFarlane’s Col- 
lection) as far south at least as the Yukon delta.2 I have not 
been able to learn whether gill nets are used in the delta of the 
Kuskoquim. Petroff’ mentions fish traps and dip nets merely. 
That the natives of Kadiak formerly had no nets I infer from 
Petroft’s statement? that ‘of late they have begun to use seines 
of whale sinew.” Nets are generally used on the Siberian 
coast. We observed them ourselves at Plover Bay, and Nor- 
denskidld° describes the nets used at Pitlekaj, which are made 
of sinew thread. Itis almost certain that the American Eskimo 
learned the use of the net from the Siberians, as they did the 
habit of smoking, since the use of the gill net appears to have 
been limited to precisely the same region as the Siberian form 
of tobacco pipe.® 
Spears.—The only evidence which we have of the use of spears 
for catching fish in this region is a single specimen, No. 89901 
[1227], Fig. 278, from Utkiavwin, which was newly and rather 
carelessly made for sale, but intended, as we were told, for spear- 
ing fish. Thishas a roughly whittled shaft, of spruce, 214 
inches long, armed at one end with three prongs. The middle 
prong is of whalebone, 44 inches long, inserted into the tip of 
the shaft, which is cut into a short neck and whipped with sinew. 
Fig.278,_ Lhe side prongs are also of bone, 9inches long. Through the tip 
Fish spear. of each is driven a sharp, slender slightly recurved spur of bone, 
about 14 inches long. Each prong is fastened to the shaft with two small 
wooden treenails, and they are braced with a figure-of-eight lashing of 
sinew through holes in the side prongs and around the middle one. The 
side prongs are somewhat elastic, so that when the spear is struck down 
1 The Greenlanders used a sort of sieve or scoop net, not seen at Point Barrow, for catching caplin 
(Mallotus villosus). Egede, Greenland, p. 108; and Crantz, vol. 1, p. 95. John Davis, however, says 
of the Greenlanders in 1586, ‘‘They make nets to take their fish of the finne of a whale.” Hakluyt's 
Voyages, etc. (1589), p. 782. 
2Dall, Alaska, p. 147; and Petroff, Report, ete., p. 127 
3Op cit., p. 73. 
4Op cit., p. 142. 
5 Vega, vol. 2, p. 109. 
® See the writer's paper in the American Anthropologist, vol. 1, pp. 325-336, 
; 
