Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 451 



This form of foreshaft does not in reality differ much from the 

 short foreshaft of the qatilik of the Central Eskimo. Like the 

 Alaskan lances, the Greenland lances of the tikaagut type have a 

 bone peg inserted on the shaft for a finger-rest a little behind the 

 middle of the shaft ^). In contrast to the Greenland lances the 

 Alaskan have an ivory pick-axe at the butt end, lashed to the 

 wooden shaft with sealskin thong; but the previously mentioned 

 primitive lance does not have this feature, neither in Alaska nor 

 elsewhere. 



Various cliaracteristic features are connected with the two Alaskan 

 types of lances ^). Stone blades were retained until recent years in tlie 

 primitive wliale lance, for religious reasons, it being forbidden to cut up 

 whales and walrus with iron. The whole form of the whale lance is for 

 the same reason an archaic phenomenon in the Eskimo culture we know. 

 (The type of harpoon head seen in the whaling harpoon is also to be re- 

 garded as primitive; it is the dominant type in the Bering Strait and in 

 North-east Greenland)^). 



The points used on the Alaskan lances of the secondary type are de- 

 tachable, and every hunter in Alaska carries a small bag made from seal- 

 skin, containing eight or ten additional points. Slate is most frequently 

 used, and occasionally flint or bone (rarely iron) points are seen. "These 

 lances are used when the seal or walrus has been disabled, so that it cannot 

 keep out of reach of its pursuers, when the hunter paddles up close along- 

 side and strikes the animal, driving the detachable head in in its entire length. 

 The head remains in the animal, and the hunter immediately fits another 

 point into the shaft and repeats the blow, thus inserting as many of the 

 barbed heads (loose shafts лvith inserted stone blades) as possible, until the 

 animal is killed or the supply of points exhausted. Every hunter has his 

 private mark cut on these points, so that, when the animal is secured, each is 

 enabled to reclaim his own"*). This last feature reminds us, that the Alaskan 

 Eskimo are divided totemistically into clans, like several of the North Pacific 

 coastal tribes, but all trace of this character has disappeared among the 

 East Eskimo. — What are referred to in the above passage as heads and as 

 points are (it appears from the illustrations^) the same as the "loose bone 

 shaff ' of the Greenland lances and it is clear, that they are not connected 

 with the wooden shaft bj^ a sealskin line. They are absolutely loose, i. e. 

 fixed into a socket at the end of the shaft but not more firmly than that 

 they leave the socket, when the hunter withdraws the weapon after the 

 point has pierced the animal. It is evident, that this was a wasteful methpd, 

 which could only persist in regions where there was a very plentiful supply 

 of bone and stone for the weapons. It is natural, that the Eskimo were 

 obliged to find another arrangement, in order to avoid this expensive use of 

 material on coasts where it was necessary to be saving. It is not known, 

 whether this custom of carrying reserve heads for the primitive (now 

 obsolete) lances has been known in Greenland. 



1) Nelson (1899) PI. LVb, figs. 1 and 2. 



-) Id. ibid. pp. 145—147. Murdoch (1892) pp. 239 et seq. 



3) Thalbitzer (1909) p. 359. 



*) Nelson (1899) pp. 146—147. 



") Id. ibid. PI. LVlla. 



29* 



