372 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
whale’s tails, one on each side, with the flukes turned from him. The 
one on his left is attached to his waist by a straight line from its upper 
corner. Atits right hand are a number of objects irregularly grouped. 
At the top an umiak with five men towing at a three-cornered object, 
which probably represents a dead whale; then a smaller umiak con- 
taining five men and apparently ‘“ fast” to a whale, which is spouting. 
A figure above this, almost obliterated, appears to be a small whale. 
Below are a large seal, three of the cross-Shaped figures, four small 
whales, and one figure so much effaced that it can not be made out. On 
the left hand of the figure are two umiaks, and a whale with a line and 
float attached to him, then four crosses and a large seal in the corner. 
Below are four whales of different sizes, two bears, and a dog or wolf. 
These gorgets appear to have gone out of fashion, as we saw none 
which were not very old, or which appeared to have been used recently. 
From the nature of the figures upon them, they were probably used in 
some of the ceremonies connected with the whale fishing. Kika migo 
may be the “divinity ” who controls the whales and other sea animals.! 
Mechanical contrivances.—In one of the performances which Capt. 
Herendeen witnessed, there stood in the middle of the floor facing each 
other, the stuffed skins of a fox and araven. These were mounted on 
whalebone springs and moved by strings, so that the fox sprang at the 
raven and the raven pecked at the fox, while the singing and dancing 
went on. These animals were never offered for sale, but they brought 
over a stuffed fox very cleverly mounted so as to spring at a lemming, 
which by means of strings was made to run in and out of two holes in 
the board on which the fox was mounted. (No 89893 [1378] from 
Utkiavwin.) We unfortunately did not learn the story or myth con- 
nected with this representation.? It was the skin of an Arctie fox in 
the summer pelage, with the paws and all the bones removed, and clum- 
sily stuffed with rope yarn, not filling out the legs. A stick was thrust 
into the tail to within about two inches of the tip, so that it was curled 
up over the back. The skin was taken off whole by a single opening 
near the vent, which was left open, and through which was thrust into 
the body a strip of whalebone 2 inches wide and about $¢ inch thick, 
which protruded about 44 inches and was fastened to the front edge of 
the hole by tying the flap of skin to the whalebone with three or four 
turns of sinew braid, kept from slipping by a notch in each edge of the 
whalebone. 
The fox was attached to a piece of the paneling of a ship’s bulkhead, 
29 inches long and 7:5 wide, by bending forward 2? inches of the end 
of the whalebone, and lashing it down parallel to the length of the 
board with four turns of stout thong, kept from slipping by a notch in 
each edge of the whalebone and running through holes in the board. 
' Cf. Crantz, vol. 1, p. 206. 
2 This very interesting specimen was unfortunately destroyed by moths at the National Museum 
after the description was written, but before it could be figured. 
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