438 



W. Thalbitzer 



of Ammassalik; these made a whistling or hissing sound as the 

 weapon flew through the air. As the noise resembled that made by 

 the bird, the animal would stretch out its neck and was thus hit 

 with more certainty. This device has now died out. 



At Ammassalik the bird dart is also used occasionally 

 in bear hunting, of course not as an attacking weapon, 

 but to give the thrower a right to share in the booty. 

 For, according to custom, each one who has touched a 

 bear (with weapon or hand) may claim the right. 



1 / 



h<i The fishing spears (pp.53 — 54) are of different types 



for the salmon (figs. 138 — 139) and the sea-scorpions 

 (fig. 140). But in them all the upper part of the wooden 

 shaft ends in a conical or flattened expansion, on which 

 the prongs or bone heads, by means of which the fish 

 are caught, are fixed. 



Figs. 138 a and b show two different methods of at- 

 taching the hinged toggle heads (tookaaq), which are used 

 Fig. 142. when the salmon are caught through a hole 

 Lateral prong in the ice. In this fishing some means of 

 of bird dart, e^^jcjj^g ^j^g ßgjj jg ßj-g^ used in the form of 



Nualik. (Am- ■ e . u- u n a 



drup coll) ^ piece oi soapstone on which small carved 

 ivory dangles are suspended by means of 

 split feather quills (aqaleetaq, figs. 172 a, 173, 177). This 

 is sunk down in the water at the end of a line. When 

 the fisher sees, that the salmon is playing at the bait, 

 he spears it with the bone fork. In the first illustra- 

 tion (138 a, cf. 141b) the two toggle heads have quite 

 the same form as those used in the seal hunting 

 with the ittuartin harpoons, even provided with small 

 iron blades at the points, only somewhat smaller. The 

 conical swelling of the wooden shaft is split at the 

 end into two short cylindrical arms, each ending in 

 a diminutive bone foreshaft. The bone shanks, which Barbed head of 

 bear the toggle heads, are fixed in sockets in the sur- salmon spear, 

 face of these arms. The shanks are attached almost 

 like the loose shaft of the harpoons, namely, loose in 

 the socket, and further, they are connected with the wooden shaft 

 by means of a thin rawhide strap through a transverse hole in their 

 butt. In fig. 138b (cf. figs. 139a, 141c) the toggle heads are not formed 

 like harpoon heads, but simply as flat, elongated pieces of bone 

 which turn about an axis in a groove in the upper end of the 

 shank. The conical swelling of the wooden shaft is not split, but 



Fig. 143. 



Nualik. (Am- 

 drup coll.). 



