367 



Boothia with two lateral barbs on the same side and with a 

 pointed butt. Arrow-heads of the Central Eskimo type (Baffin 

 Land etc.) are, according to Boas, always 'slanted and lashed to 

 the shaft', whereas those of the western type (Boothia, Mackenzie 

 River) are 'pointed and inserted in the shaft'. The arrow-heads 

 from King William Land in the collection lOf the Gjøa expe- 

 dition in the Ethnographical Museum at Christiania have, one 

 and all , a bone head which at its butt is held in place 

 by a lashing on the cylindrical wooden shaft, presumably 

 inserted in a hole at the end of it (the lashing conceals the 

 junction); these heads are either pointed at the fore end, or 

 have a slit for the insertion of a blade; several of them have 

 lateral barbs. Inv. Amd. 17 might be regarded as a similar 

 arrow head of the more western type, i. e. 'pointed and inserted 

 in the shaft' (Boothia, King William Land; also Alaska, cf. 

 Nelson M, though no exactly corresponding specimen is known 

 to us from the west. However, among the numerous varieties 

 of bone arrows in the National Museum at Copenhagen there are 

 several which resemble that treated of here pretty closely.^) 



It is, however, by no means out of the question that we 

 have to do with the head of a bird-dart. The point of the Eskimo 

 bird-dart was originally made blunt, in order to avoid piercing 

 the skin of the bird, but is found from early times in two 

 varieties, one with a blunt point-'), and the other with a pointed 

 bone head and three barbed lateral points, placed a little behind 

 the middle of the wooden shaft. 



Swenander gives reproductions from the Pfaff collection 

 from West Greenland^) of a series of dart-heads with conically 

 pointed ends and lateral barbs. Most of them are designated 

 as harpoon heads (i. e. bone fore-pieces), or lance heads, though 



'I Nelson Pi. 61; Mason II, PI. :Л to 66. 

 »I Solberg 73. 



») Mason II. PI. ;Л and .57; Nelson PI. 61. 

 *) Swenander PI. 4. 



24* 



