Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 449 



ing weapon with head and attached bladder (Alaska aqligak, Labrador 

 akligak, Baffins Land agdliak^), West Greenland aLLigaq, East Greenland 

 atiigaq). Of course when the Greenlanders throw the knob harpoon with 

 the throwing stick, just as the bladder dart is thrown, this is only a recent 

 analogy from the smaller throwing darts, which are everywhere thrown 

 with the throwing stick when used in the kaiak. But it seems reasonable 

 to seek for a close relationship between the two kinds of throwing weapons 

 to which the characteristic bladder is attached and which are, or originally 

 were, provided with detachable barbed heads. As a matter of fact, the 

 introduction of this arrangement is not more difficult to understand than 

 that of the loose barbed head in the Alaska sea-otter harpoon, which is 

 undoubtedly only a variety of the bladder dart. It is noteworthy that the 

 bladder dart used in the central regions has a loose toggle head at the end 

 of its bone foreshaft. In the agdliaq from the regions north of Hudson Bay 

 (Melville Peninsula and Igdlulik) illustrated by Parry and Lyon 2) we find a 

 loose bone foreshaft and loose toggle head agreeing with the same devices 

 in the harpoon weapons we know both from Bering Strait and Davis Strait. 

 From Smith Sound in North Greenland Kroeber has shown a bladder dart 

 with a loose shaft, movable like that of the kaiak harpoon and kaiak lance*). 

 Murdoch reproduces a dart head from Point Barrow in Alaska, which he 

 considers as related to the ciLLigaq weapon*). It unites in one piece of bone 

 the loose shaft and the barbed head of the harpoon. It has bilateral barbs 

 in the front part, two line holes in the butt end and tapering basal end, 

 evidently intended to fit into a socket. — The word aLLigaq itself probably 

 means 'provided with barbs,' cf. Kleinschmidt, Grønlandsk Ordbog (1871) 

 p. 18 (agdligak). 



The arrangement with the loose bladder, which is attached to the loose 

 head b}^ the long line, is merely a further extension of the idea with the 

 loose head attached by a line to the shaft, such as we find realized, for ex- 

 ample, in the Alaskan sea-otter harpoon and in the smaller sealing spears. 

 The bladder harpoon wdth loose barbed head, used in the hunting of small 

 seal, may thus well be the archetype of the large kaiak harpoon. Where this 

 development has taken place, we do not know, but we find essentially the 

 same two tj^pes of weapons both in Alaska, in central regions and in 

 Greenland. 



In the endeavour constantly to find better methods of freeing 

 the bone head of the weapon from the shaft, after the animal has 

 been hit, and to prevent its escape through the water, the primitive 

 hunter has gradually transformed his arrow and his dart. For his 

 ingenuity there were only small steps to make from those light 

 arrow-like darts, where the wooden shaft floats and acts as a drag, 

 to the bladder dart'^) where the shaft is kept afloat by an attached 



1) Murdoch (1892) pp. 212 (fig. 197) and 214—215; Erdman, Eskimoisches Wörter- 

 buch (Labrador) p. 18; Boas (1888) p. 493. 



2) Parry (1824) pp. 550-551, fig. 18. Lyon (1824) p. 325. Cf. Boas (1888) p. 494, 

 fig. 428. 



3) Kroeber (1899) fig. 3. 



*) Murdoch (1892) p. 214, fig. 201 and p. 212, fig. 197. The larger spear reproduced 

 b}' Nelson from Norton Sound (1899, PI. LVa, fig. 1) seems to be a bladder 

 dart of a similar kind. 



^) Tilis point of view has already been set forth by Rink (1886) p. 140. 



XXXIX. 29 



