423 



in Nelson and Murdoch, appear to be preponderatingly circular 

 in cross section, the more easterly types, from the coasts of 

 Hudson Bay and Baffln Land, illustrated in Boas^) and Turner^), 

 are more flattened from both sides. 



Exclusively cylindrical needle-cases are found also in the 

 Gjöa Expedition's (Amundsen's) collection at Christiania; the 

 leather thong, which is drawn through the tube, is here se- 

 cured by one of the ends of the thong being fastened with a 

 knot to a thin bone handle, which toggles towards the end of 

 the tube; at the other end of the thong are stuck needles and 

 bodkins, beads, animals' teeth, etc. 



This type of implement is not confined to the Eskimo; an 

 exactly similar implement is also found among the Laplanders; 

 in the Nordiska Museum at Stockholm there are over 30 similar 

 needle-cases, which have belonged to the Laplanders, consisting 

 of ornamented bone tubes through which a rawhide thong is 

 drawn, held in place with the aid of a knot at one end (quite 

 like the thongs in the needle-cases described by Murdoch from 

 Point Barrow in Alaska), while the needles are stuck in the 

 other end of the strap. — The same implement has probably 

 been in use in several places in the north of Siberia; I know 

 it only among the Chukchee^). 



No proofs have so far been forthcoming that this implement 

 was used in the domestic culture of the Greenland Eskimo, 

 but there are grounds for believing that it must once have 

 existed there. It may, however, easily be imagined that, owing 

 to the introduction of new sewing implements from Europe, 

 it passed out of use at an early date, and was superseded by 

 other kinds of repositories, so that the object of it, when 

 found in graves or ruins, is no longer known. The Greenland 

 specimens which supplement inv. Amd. 61 with a consider- 



•) Boas I, 523 II, 94. 

 ») Turner 254. 

 8) Bogoras 224. 



