Ethnological Sketch of the Angmagsalik Eskimo. 41 



or cap to guide the shaft. Formerly they had bone points on their 

 drills, but now they use iron points, made from nails. The bow is 

 often made of the wing-bone of a swan, or of the bone of some 

 other large bird; when it is of wood, it is generally prettily inlaid 

 with ivory. The mouth-piece is made of a natural knuckle-bone 

 with a hollow, or else of wood with a lining of bone laid in 

 (figs. 70, 191, 203). 



The drills are sometimes used for boring single holes in wood, 

 sometimes also for splitting bone or ivory, which is done by boring 

 a line of holes quite close to each other. When, on the other hand, 

 a large piece of drift-wood is to be split, it is done by means of 

 wooden wedges. 



The saws are small, and as a rule made in the form of bow 

 saws. They are made of hoops or tinplate, and they are used for 

 sawing in bone or ivory (figs. 188, 199). 



On the props which separate the platform rooms, hang the 

 women's knives, combs, needle-guards, thimble-holders, hooks for 

 sinew thread, implements for twisting and plaiting thread and cords, 

 bags for the lamp moss (fig. 253), etc. 



Fire-making. — To the house inventory belongs the fire-making 

 apparatus. Fire is produced by turning a hard wooden stick 

 rapidly round with the aid of a piece of rawhide cord, while at 

 the same time pressing it down into a cavity in a block of wood, 

 by means of a handle or cap in which there is a bone bearing 

 fitting the upper end of the stick. There must thus be two persons 

 for making fire, one causing the stick to rotate, while the other 

 presses it down into the cavity. Both of them press their feet on 

 the wooden block to keep it steady, and use all their force to the 

 work. As soon as a spark is produced in the wood-dust thus for- 

 med in the block, they fan it into a bright glow with their hand, 

 whereupon the glowing wood is scraped out into a peculiar kind of 

 moss, in which fire is fanned. In this way a fire can be made in an 

 incredibly short time (figs. 69, 256). 



Stone settings. — Outside the house are stone-settings for the 

 blubber bags. Sometimes there is also a little toy house for the 

 children, with passage-way, platform etc. Here the children have 

 their lamps burning, and here they practically live in winter time. 



Travellers who are unable to reach the usual wintering-places 

 often are obliged to build houses in desert tracts. These houses 

 are small and are constructed only of stones, without the use of 

 turf, either because there is no turf to be had in such places, or 



