308 IVORY AND THE ELEPHANT 



The ingenuity and skill of the Eskimos of Alaska in utiliz- 

 ing fossil and walrus ivory is shown by the considerable 

 variety of objects produced by them from this material. 

 Some of the most useful and beautiful are the ornamentally 

 cut and etched fastenings ia walrus ivory for the "house- 

 wives," or bags, used by the Eskimo women to hold their 

 sewing materials, tools, etc. In the examples figured, the 

 material came from the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, at the 

 mouth of the Kuskokwoni River. Other Eskimo work in 

 this material appears in a very delicate and carefully exe- 

 cuted bit of carving representing a salmon; this comes from 

 St. Michael's, Alaska. We have also two buttons, showing 

 composite animal forms, from Kotzebue Sound. The fine 

 and really artistic work on these objects, wrought by deft 

 touches of the carver's tools, will excite the surprise of those 

 who consider our Alaskan Eskimo to be utterly uncivilized. 



Polished sections of walrus tusks, from St. Michael's, 

 Alaska, and a number of water-worn pebbles of this material, 

 varying in size from 1 to 6 in. long, from the Alaskan 

 shores of Bering Sea, illustrate the form and condition of the 

 walrus ivory used by the Eskimos and so skilfully worked 

 by them. Another interesting example of work in this type 

 of ivory is afforded by a harpoon-head of the kind used in the 

 capture of whales; this comes from the Sew^ard Peninsula, 

 Alaska. An Eskimo fish line, from the Bering Sea coast of 

 Alaska, consists of a line of twisted sinew, hooks of bone and 

 metal, and a sinker of an old, beautifully coloured piece of 

 walrus ivory. A gauntling implement from the Bering Sea 

 coast is another good example of Eskimo work in this ma- 

 terial. The whalers do a thriving trade in walrus tusks, 

 which they string together with a rawhide line traversing 

 holes bored through the ends of the tusks. 



In the collection of Lieutenant Emmons is a dipper of 

 mammoth ivory from Kotzebue Sound, of exquisite rich 



