290 



EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1888. 



either attached to a float or is in the hand of the Indian. Fig. 150a is 

 another steel salmon spear head of the same type, while Fig. 138, Plate 

 XXIX, is a three-pronged spear of a very different type. In its more primi- 

 tive form the three barbed prongs are of long pieces of 

 bone with barbed and serrated edges. Sometimes the 

 same design as that shown is found, in which the arrow- 

 shaped tips are of bone or shell. Steel is now generally 

 used, the fore-shaft of the head being permanently se- 

 cured into a socket in the head of the cedar wood spear 

 shaft with a tough lashing and a coating of spruce gum 

 at the joint. 



Fish hooJcs.— The apparently clumsy hooks of this re- 

 gion have been found to possess so many advantages 

 over the type used by Europeans that they are retained 

 by the Indians to this day. Curiously enough the use to 

 which they put our large steel hooks is shown in Fig. 

 149, Plate xxx, viz, as spear heads, to which they are 

 admirably adapted. There is little in the art of fishing 

 that we can teach these Indians, and their conservatism 

 is founded on exceedingly good judgment, although it 

 is not to be denied that superstitious belief in the efili- 

 ciency of certain forms of hooks is somewhat of an ele- 

 ment in such conservatism. One advantage the native 

 hooks undoubtedly possess over our own is in not being 

 liable to foul the bottom. A very primitive type of hook 

 is that shown in Fig. 147, Plate xxx, in which the barb 

 is a straight piece of bone, the shank a piece of wood, and the snood or 

 snell a piece of whale bone. The snood is attached to the shank by a 

 lashing of bark. This type of hook must be distinguished from the 

 double-pointed one similar in general construction shown in Fig. 146. 

 This is a sort of gig or snag for hooking fish where they are plentiful. 

 Fig. 145 is such an instrument pure and simple, the iron head shown fit- 

 ting to a cedar i)ole shaft. It is used for gigging salmon where they are 

 thick and sluggish during the "runs." A very primitive type of hook 

 not uncommon in Alaska is that shown in Fig. 142, consisting of a small 

 narrow block of wood with a spike of bone, shell, or iron, and a snood 

 of spruce root, kelp or whale bone. The general varieties of hooks 

 used in the northern region about Dixon Eutrance are shown in Plate 

 XXXI. Of these the primitive halibut hooks are Figs. 155, 156, 159, and 

 161. The first two are made in two pieces, each lashed at the joint 

 with cedar bark, the shanks being carved with designs supposed to 

 give good luck to the fisherman. The barbs were formerly of bone or 

 shell, but later of iron. The last two are made from the forked 

 branches of a tree dressed down to neat dimensions, and are very 

 strong and serviceable, often bringing up halibut weighing from 50 to 

 120 pounds. The bait is lashed to that arm of the hook which carries 



Fig. 150a. 



Salmon Spear- 

 head. 



(Tlingit. Emmons Col- 

 lection.) 



