298 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
[1426], Fig. 291), only 0-4 inch long, to blades like No, 89612 [820], Fig. 
297, from Utkiavwin. This is newly made from light gray translucent 
flint and is 5 inches long. The name kibfigf, applied to this specimen 
by the native from whom it was purchased, appears to refer either to 
the material or the unusual size. The blade is ordinarily called kuki, 
“a claw.” With the ivory handles a blade about 1 or 14 inches is com- 
monly used and with the wooden ones a considerably 
larger one, 2 to 3 inches in length. The handles vary in 
size to fit the hands of the owners, but are all too small 
for an average white man’s hand. All 
that we collected are for the right hand. 
This pattern of skin scraper which ap- 
pears from the Museum collections to be 
the prevailing one from Point Barrow to 
Norton Sound, is evidently the direct de- 
scendant of the form used still farther 
south, which consists of a stone or bone 
Fig. 297.—Flint blade blade of the same shape, mounted on a 
forskin scraper. wooden handle often a foot or 18 inches 
long, which has the other end bent down into a handle 
like the butt of a pistol. Shortening this handle (aproe- 
ess shown by specimens in the Museum) would bring 
the worker’s hand nearer to the blade, thus enabling him 
to guide it better. Let this process be continued till the 
whole handle is short enough to be grasped in the hand 
and we have the first subtype described, of which the 
others are clearly improvements. 
A still more primitive type of scraper is shown by Fig. 
298, No. 89651 [1295] from Utkiavwin, the only specimen 
of the kind seen. This has a flint blade, like those of 
the modern scrapers, inserted in the larger end of a 
straight haft of reindeer antler, 54 incheslong. We did 
not learn the history of this tool in the hurry of trade, 
but from the shape of the blade it is evidently a scraper. 
Its use as a skin scraper is rendered still more probable 
by the fact that the serapers used by some of the eastern fre. 298.—Straight- 
Eskimo (there are specimens in the Museum from Cum- _ hafterseraper. 
berland Gulf and Pelly Bay) have straight handles, though shorter 
than this. 
The Siberian natives use an entirely different form of scraper which 
has a long handle like that of a spoke-shave with a small blade of stone 
or iron in the middle and is worked with both hands.’ Fig. 299 (No. 
89488 [1578] from Utkiavwin) is a tool which we never saw in use 
but which we were told was intended for scraping skins. It is prob- 
ably an obsolete tool, as a knife would better serve the purpose of re- 
' Nordenskiéld, Vega, vol. 2, pp. 122, and Fig. 1, p. 117. 
