436 



W. Thalbitzer 



This weapon (the Ammassalik type of it) has a special foreshaft 

 of wood, of the characteristic form seen in fig. 124. In the broad 

 end surface is a socket, in which the arrow-like bone head of the 

 weapon is fixed. This head is provided with a short unilateral barb. 

 In recent specimens iron heads of European make are used instead 

 of the bone head. 



The bladder dart is seen in an old painting of an 

 Eskimo family from West Greenland, painted in Bergen in 

 1654 (it is now in the National Museum of Copenhagen i). 

 The man stands with the weapon in the right hand. The 

 point of the bone head of this dart is carved into a pec- 

 uliar form, a type of arrow head often found in relicts 

 of the earlier culture on the west coast. The point con- 

 sists of two parts, the one as if grown out of the other, 

 having each the form of a conical (or partially squared) 

 head with four distinct basal barbs; in a groove in the 

 topmost part is inserted a blade of stone or bone with 

 two barbs. From the base of the loose shaft a tightened 

 line runs down along the wooden shaft to the place where 

 the small bladder is fixed. 



-The bird dart (nukkin or nuiän), figs. 137 a, b, с 

 (cf. p. 47) is used from the kaiak in the hunting of 

 swimming birds. Like the bladder dart it has its 

 place on the fore-deck of the kaiak (along the left 

 or port side) and like this is thrown by means of 

 a throwing stick (special to this weapon, see fig. 147 b). 

 Technical names: erqartaataa the bone head; 

 qupiniweekitaa the fore-shaft; cooa upper portion of 

 theshaft; kakineraat the mid part immediately above 

 the lateral bone prongs; aaiän lateral barbed bone 

 points or prongs: qaqiwa the mid part immediately 

 under the aaiän; nemtaa the butt end ('its tooth'?) qaqiwisaa bone 

 peg on the end of the shaft. 



Almost all the extant specimens in the collections from East 

 Greenland are of a recent make, in so far as they are provided with 

 a long, barbed iron head (fig. 122) of European manufacture, instead 

 of the older bone head. Such bone heads are well-known from West 

 Greenland perhaps with exception of the northernmost part of the 

 coast, where the bird dart seems to have fallen out of use partially 

 or, at Smith Sound, even not to have been used "). The bone heads 

 are as a rule cut from one piece and have lateral barbs on the 

 front end or a blade (of bone or stone?) inserted in a groove. So 

 far as I know, our collections from Greenland do not contain any 



Fig. 141. Barbed 



heads of salmon 



spears. 



(Holm coll.). 



a 4», b, с Ve. 



1) Reproduced in Hahnson (1900) p. 232, fig. 104. 



■-') Kroeber (1899) p. 283. Schultz-Lorentzen (li)04j pp. 309 and 313. 



