I.-THROWING-STICKS IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



By Otis T. Mason. 



Col. Lane Fox tells us there are three areas of the thro wing- stick : 



Australia, where it is simply an elongated spindle with a hook at the 

 end; the country of the Conibos and the Poms, on the Upper Amazon, 



where the implement resembles that of the Australians, and the hyper- 

 borean regions of North America. 



It is of this last group that we shall now speak, since the National 

 Museum possesses only two specimens from the first-named area and 

 none whatever from the second. 



The researches and collections of Bessels, Turner, Boas, Ilall, ]\I intz- 

 ner, Kennicott, Ray, Murdoch, Nelson, Herendeen, and Dall, to all of 

 whom I acknowledge my obligations, enable me to compare widely sep- 

 arated regions of the hyperborean area, and to distinguish these regions 

 by the details in the structure of the throwiug-stick. 



The method of holding the throwiug-stick is indicated in Fig. 1 

 by a drawing of H. W. Elliott. The Eskimo is just in the act of 

 launching the light seal harpoon. The barbed point will fasten itself 

 into the animal, detach itself from the ivory foreshaft, and unwind the 

 rawhide or sinew line, which is securely tied to both ends of the light 

 wooden shaft by a martingale device. The heavy ivory foreshaft will 

 cause the shaft to assume an upright position in the water, and the 

 whole will act as a drag to impede the progress of the game. The same 

 idea of impeding progress and of retrieving is carried out by a multi- 

 tude of devices not necessary to mention here. 



The Eskimo spend much time in their skin kyaks, from which it 

 would be difficult to launch an arrow from a bow, or a harpoon from the 

 unsteady, cold, and greasy hand. This device of the throwing-stick, 

 therefore, is the substitute for the bow or the sling, to be used in the 

 kyak, by a people who cannot procure the proper materials for a heavier 

 lance-shaft, or at least whose environment is prejudicial to the use of 

 such a weapon. Just as soon as we pass Mount St. Elias going south 

 ward, the throwing-stick, plus the spear or dart of the Eskimo and the 

 Aleut, gives place to the harpoon with a long, heavy, cedar shaft, weigh- 

 ing 15 or 20 pounds, whose momentum from both hands of the Indian, 

 without the throw-stick, exceeds that of the Eskimo and Aleut darts 



