Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 441 



for feather harpoons, found by Amdrup at the ^'dead house" (NuaHk). 

 a is seen from the (upper or inner) side towards the harpoon shaft 

 when lifted for throwing; the shaft sinks a httle into the median 

 groove,' which is deepest at the front end of the throwing stick (to 

 the left in the illustration), but becomes shallow towards the middle 

 and disappears at the hind end. In the groove is a hole for the 

 bone peg on the wooden shaft. The second throwing stick (b), which 

 is shown from the under side (back), has two holes. The throwing 

 sticks of feather harpoons usually have two holes fitting two bone 

 pegs on the harpoon shaft. Fig. 144 is the throwing stick which 

 belongs to the feather harpoon for a child illustrated in fig. 104; it 

 also has two holes. 



The back (narrow) end of these throwing sticks for feather har- 

 poons has a contrivance, which is characteristic of the Ammassalik 

 type, and is even something 

 special in the Eskimo world- 

 Instead of the two small, round 

 bone pegs, which meet each 

 other at the butt end of the West 

 Greenland throwing stick, one 

 {qilik) on this, the other {qaqui- 

 seq) on the wooden shaft ^), the 

 Ammassalik feather harpoon has 

 a square bevelled surface at the ^'^- ^^^- ^'""^ P^^* «^ ^ throwing stick of 



T „ , , „ , T feather harpoon. Nualik. (Amdrup coll.). ^i4. 



end oi the shart, concealed 



among the bone feathers, fitting a congruent plane on the throwing 

 stick, namely the square front side of a forward verging barb, which 

 sits upon the back end of the throwing stick. This barb forms the 

 outer part of a kind of bone hook which is wedged into a triangular 

 cut in the stick. As can be seen from fig. 148, this bone hook is 

 formed of two pieces, the larger main piece in shape like a triang- 

 ular wedge, flat above and slightly concave on .the under side, and 

 the barb piece, a small block of bone in form like a longitudinal 

 section of a cylinder, fixed by iron nails on the smooth upper side 

 of the main piece, along the hind edge of it. As the top part of the 

 block verges a little forward a hook is produced, the inward (down- 



1) O.Fabricius (1810) pp 138-139: "At the end of the shaft among these feathers 

 is the uppermost end-bone, which is called kakkogegsa i. e. 'something to gnaw 

 in,' because the hook of the throwing stick is constantly gnawing and wriggling 

 in it. It is made either of reindeer horn, seal tooth, white whale tooth or 

 other piece of ivory; it is a small, round bone hollow at the end, which is 

 fixed in the end of the shaft and serves the purpose of allowing the end-hook 

 of the throwing stick to have free movement in it. " 



