THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. 



283 



ing the animal for which it was made. Figs. 128 and 129 are sea-otter 

 clubs ; Figs. 130 and 131 are seal clubs. The halibut and other hsh 

 clubs are similar in design. A type not here illustrated is a round 

 wooden knob with straight handle. 



Daggers. — Dixon (1787) says of the 

 naida and Tlingit: 



Their weapons are spears fixed to a pole 6 

 or 8 feet long, and a kind of short dagger, 

 which is worn in a leather case, and tied 

 round the body; to this dagger a leather 

 thong is fastened, at the end of which is a hole 

 for the middle finger; the leather is afterwards 

 twisted round the wrist in order to fix the 

 dagger firm in the hand, so that the warrior 

 loses his weapon only with his life.* 



The handle is generally nearer one 

 end than the other, giving a long blade 

 and a short one. The leather sheath 

 is usually strapped to the waist or 

 hung about the neck, concealed be- 

 neath the blanket. The handle is small 

 in diameter, wrapped with leather, and 

 secured by a thong to the wrist when 

 carried in the hand. The blades are 

 flat and thicker down the middle than 

 towards the edges, being generally 

 grooved on each side of the center 

 ridge. All varieties of patterns, how- 

 ever, are found, the different types 

 being well represented in Plate xxv, 

 of which Fig. 108 represents a primi- 

 tive dagger of copper inlaid with hali- 

 otis shell, while Fig. 107 is the same 

 type, of steel, with copper mountings. 

 Fig. IQld is a sheath of buckskin for 

 the short blade of the dagger, and 107e 

 the same for the long blade, the latter 

 having, as shown, a strap to go about the neck. The dagger shown in 

 Fig. 107 is from the Copper Eiver Indians, but is clearly a Tlingit type, 

 having undoubtedly reached that region in the course of trade. Fig. 106 

 shows a one-bladed dagger with a carved handle. Fig. 104, with its three 

 details, a, b, and c, shows the method of securing the handle to the blade. 

 Fig. 1 05 is a Tlingit chief's dagger. The edges of all of them are rather 

 dull and the points somewhat blunt, but the execution which these 

 deadly weapons do is in the force with which they are driven into an 



Fig. 122a. 

 Stone Wae-Club. 



(Tlingit. Emmons Collection. ) 



* Dixon, Voyage, p. 244. 



