MURDOCH. ] SCOOPS AND SKIMMERS. 309 
bone. The left end has been broken across obliquely near the joint 
and mended with whalebone stitches. Round the lower edge of the 
rim runs a row of twenty-seven pairs of small holes 0-2 inch from the 
edge. The holes of each pair are connected by a deep channel, and a 
narrow shallow groove, probably for ornament, joins the pairs. On the 
left side are eight extra holes between the pairs, which are not used. 
Through these holes, omitting the first two pairs in the right-hand end, 
is laced a piece of seal thong, thus: Starting at the point of the oval, the 
two ends of the thong are passed through the pair of holes there from 
the outside and the bight drawn home into the channel; the ends are 
crossed, the left end going to the right, and vice versa, and passed out 
through the farther hole of the next pair and in through the nearer, and 
so on till the ends meet at the broad end of the oval where they are tied 
together, thus making twenty-five loops on the inside of the rim into 
which the netting is fastened. This is made of strips of thin whale- 
bone, interwoven, over and under each other, passing up through one 
loop and down through the next. There are eleven longitudinal strands 
passing obliquely from right to left, the same number from left to right, 
and eleven transverse strands, making a network with elongated hex- 
agonal apertures. The strips are not one continuous piece. The bowl 
thus made is fastened to the handle by three pieces of stout seal thong. 
The whole lashing was put on wet, and allowed to shrink. 
Nordenskiéld mentions and figures a scoop of almost identically the 
same pattern, but smaller, in general use for the same purposes at 
Pitlekaj.!. A smaller scoop or skimmer (€lauatin) is also universally 
used. We inadvertently neglected to preserve a specimen of this very 
common implement, though we had two or three about the station for 
our own use. I shall therefore have to describe it frommemory. The 
handle is a flat, straight stick with rounded edges, about 18 inches or 2 
feet long, 14 inches broad, and three-fourths inch thick. The bowl is 
made of two pieces of antler ‘‘palm” of such a shape that when they 
are fastened together on the end of the stick they make a shallow cup 
about 34 inches long by 3 wide, with a longitudinal crevice along the 
middle which allows the water to drain off. The tip of the handle is 
beveled off on both sides so as to fit into the inside of this cup, along 
the junction of the two pieces, each of which is fastened to it by one or 
two neat stitches of whalebone. The two pieces are fastened together 
in front of the handle with a stitch. 
In addition to the use of these scoops for skimming the fishing holes, 
and reeling up the line, as already described, they also serve as scrapers 
to remove snow and hoar frost from the clothing. In the winter most 
ofthe men and boys, epecially the latter, carry these skimmers whenever 
they go out doors, partly for the sake of having something in their 
hands, as we carry sticks, and partly for use. The boys are very fond 
of using them to pick up and sling snowballs, bits of ice, or frozen dirt, 
which they do with considerable force and accuracy. 
1 Vega, vol. 1, p. 493. 
