39; 



a slope or between the hummocks on the sea ice. The use of 

 uprights made of vsood seems to be confined to Greenland. 



Among the central Eskimo the use of uprights is only 

 spoken ot among the Baffin Land Eskimo ^), and they use as 

 uprights reindeer horns, adhering to the skulls. It is con- 

 ceivable that it is this latter contrivance which has given 

 rise to the use of the wooden uprights which are characteristic 

 of the East Eskimo sledges in Greenland. 



The East Eskimo type of sledge, however great its varia- 

 tions in detail, corresponds only to one of the two types 

 which, according to Murdoch -), are in use among the West 

 Eskimo, particularly in the north of Alaska. One of these 

 Arctic Alaska types, which is unknown to the eastwards, is 

 common to the Alaska Eskimo and the Chukchee in North 

 East Siberia-'). The other, smaller type (миш = "the one which 

 is dragged") which is low and flat, without rails or uprights, 

 is used mainly for transporting game, or the women's boat 

 {umiak\ across the land or solid ice. "Both kinds are made 

 without nails, but are fastened together by mortises and lashings 

 and stitches of thong and whalebone; both kinds are made of 

 drift-wood and shod with strips of whale's jaw fastened on with 

 bone treenails." As Murdoch^) goes on to remark, it is the 

 unia type which corresponds to that of Greenland, except in 

 the fad that it is without uprights. It is this type of sledge 

 which must apparently be regarded as typical of the Eskimo, 

 which is found recurring variouly fashioned, but on a large, and 

 in fact the very largest scale among the Eskimo in King William 

 Land and in North East Greenland. Inv. Amd. 21 ^ a little toy 

 sledge, found on a child's grave in the extreme east of the 

 Eskimo lands, is probably an imitation of this type. 



>) Boas I, 529. 



■') Murdoch I, 353. 



*) Bogoras ICS — 106. 



*) Murdoch I, 353. 



