359 



of a blade, 15 are carved entirely out of a single piece of bone 

 without a slit for a blade, and the remaining 5 are doubtful. 

 In inv. Nathorst (Hammar) 3 heads are quite of the whaling 

 harpoon type. In view of the great number of West Green- 

 land heads which are to be found in the museums with lateral 

 barbs in innumerable variations, it is extremely remarkable to 

 find in .\orth East Greenland exclusively heads of a type without 

 these lateral barbs. Is it conceivable that the development of 

 harpoon heads here has been unaffected by a differentiation 

 of the implement which is otherwise found in all other 

 Eskimo districts, so that the original whaling harpoon (walrus 

 harpoon or great sealing harpoon) here is to be regarded as 

 the local archetype of a quite isolated line of development ? or 

 how is this one-sidedness in the development of this implement 

 in North East Greenlaud to be explained? 



Among the above described objects found by Amdrup there 

 are two harpoon heads of pecuUar types, which convey a notion 

 of their function : viz., Inv. Amd. 4 (without slit for the blade), 

 the line-hole of which points to a peculiar mode of attachment: 

 the line cannot have taken the form of a noose with a double pull 

 from both sides of the head round a transverse axis, but of a single- 

 running pull in the median axis (acting about at the centre of 

 gravity of the headi; — and Inv. Amd. 10 (with a slit for 

 the blade), which is of quite another type than any of the rest, 

 a pure toggle harpoon without either lateral or basal barb. If 

 my conception of it is right, it must have been used in sealing 

 on the ice. Whereas the former head is merely an accidental 

 variation (just as inv. Pfaff 8, West Greenland)^), the peculiarity 

 of Inv. Amd. 10 is due to the special function of the head; 

 this confirms what one might naturally have been led to expect, 

 viz., that the inhabitants of these northern coasts must have 

 been acquainted with the same special methods of hunting as 



M They are delineated by Stolpe PI. IV. fig. 114. 

 ■' Swenander 16, PI. II. 



