479 



that the Eskimo's representations of themselves, the only race 

 of men they know, appear to us less characteristic than their 

 animal figures. 



Inv. Amd. 90 — 95 (Fig. 58), from Cape Tobin. Six animals 

 carved in ivory. All of them have a hole pierced in them 

 either at one end or in the middle. They were used as 

 hanging ornaments, perhaps attached to needle-cases. They are 

 very small, very finely worked. 



The first figure represents a swimming bird (without trace 

 of its legs). To the right is seen a blown-up bladder, a seal- 

 skin float, for which, as we know, a whole sealskin is used, 

 with the skin of the head, the swimmers, and the tail intact 

 and well sewn together, so that the air which is blown in 

 distends the whole skin, making it assume the form of a 

 whole seal. 



In the middle row are seen a walrus and a whale. 



In the bottom row to the right (under the whale) we see 

 a plump seal of the smallest variety, lying on its belly. The 

 drawing (Fig. 59) gives a better impression of 

 how this little work of art is to be conceived. 

 The animal is evidently to be looked upon as 

 lying on its back, in the position in which 

 after killing it is dragged ashore over the ice 

 by the hunter. 



As all the animals just mentioned are Fig. 59 (inv. Amd. 



rendered in a very lifelike manner in the ^^'- ^^^^ "^'""^^ '" 



ivory. 



carvings, there are no grounds for supposing 

 that the sixth, inv. Amd. 95, should not also give a faithful 

 representation of some animal or other. However, it is by no 

 means easy to identify it. It can not be any kind of seal, as 

 it has no swimmers, and the shape of the head with the small 

 pointed ears is very unlike that of a seal. The imagination 

 recoils from conceiving it as a land mammifer. And yet we 

 have no other recourse, and we shall discover, to our surprise, 



31" 



