354 



in a direction opposed to that of the shoulders. One of the 

 corners is sharp, the other slightly rounded. The head has 

 no barbs at all. 



This harpoon head is of a different type from the others. 

 I presume that it must have been used in the kind of ice- 

 hunting which is called ituartin. This method of hunting has 

 been described, as far as West Greenland is concerned, by Rink^) 

 and, for Ammassalik,^ by G. Holm^), who was the first to observe 

 and define the particular form of harpoon head used for this 

 kind of sealing. 



But the ituartin harpoon heads which Holm brought back 

 with him were longer and more slender than this northern 

 type, and were pointed at the back end like a prong and provided 

 with a small barb^). 



However, the harpoon head which was found by Amdrup 

 in Skaergaardshalvö, 140 miles north of Ammassalik, is similar 

 in principle to the ituartin heads. It is movable round an axis 

 which lies horizontally. As the centre of gravity of the body 

 lies a little further forward in the direction of the point than 

 the axis, the head would assume a vertical direction, were it 

 not held in the direction of the harpoon shaft by the aid of 

 a strap which catches its rear end. The head is fitted on to 

 the axis (a bone peg) in a deep slit at the end of the harpoon 

 shaft, and its oblique shoulders rest close up against the cor- 

 responding narrow surfaces of the end of the shaft (on either 

 side of the slit), when it is held down on them by the aid of 

 the strap. At the moment when the strap slides off as the 

 head pierces the animal, the head turns crosswise like a toggle. 

 Inv. Amd. 10 diverges in details from the ituartin type of 



*) Rink, De danske Handelsdistrikter i Nordgrønland I (1852), p. 115 cf. 



also D. Cranz I. 206—207. 

 ^) Holm, Meddelelser om Grønland X, 78. 

 =') Holm. Plate XVI. Cf. Mason, III, 237—38, and fig. 23 ("Hinged toggle 



head"). 



