A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
We can say nothing as to the manner of their catching or killing
land-animals, unless we may suppose that they shoot the smaller sorts
with their arrows, and engage bears, or wolves and foxes, with their
spears. They have, indeed, several nets, which are probably applied
to that purpose;[3] as they frequently threw them over their heads,
to shew their use, when they brought them to us for sale. They also,
sometimes, decoy animals, by covering themselves with a skin, and
running about upon all-fours, which they do very nimbly, as appeared
from the specimens of their skill, which they exhibited to us,
making a kind of noise, or neighing, at the same time; and on these
occasions, the masks or carved heads, as well as the real dried heads
of the different animals, are put on.
[Footnote 3: One of the methods of catching sea-otters, when ashore
at Kamptschatka, is with nets.--See _Coxe's Russian Discoveries_, p.
13.--D.]
As to the materials, of which they make their various articles, it
is to be observed, that every thing of the rope kind is formed either
from thongs of skins and sinews of animals, or from the same flaxen
substance of which their mantles are manufactured. The sinews often
appeared to be of such a length, that it might be presumed they could
be of no other animal than the whale. And the same may be said of
the bones of which they made their weapons already mentioned; such as
their bark-beating instruments, the points of their spears, and the
barbs of their harpoons.
Their great dexterity in works of wood, may, in some measure, be
ascribed to the assistance they receive from iron tools. For, as far
as we know, they use no other; at least we saw only one chisel of
bone. And though originally their tools must have been of different
materials, it is not improbable that many of their improvements have
been made since they acquired a knowledge of that metal, which now
is universally used in their various wooden works. The chisel and the
knife are the only forms, as far as we saw, that iron assumes amongst
them. The chisel is a long flat piece, filled into a handle of wood. A
stone serves for a mallet, and a piece of fish-skin for a polisher.
I have seen some of these chisels that were eight or ten inches long,
and three or four inches broad, but, in general, they were smaller.
The knives are of various sizes; some very large; and their blades are
crooked, somewhat like our pruning-knife, but the edge is on the back
or convex part. Most of them that we saw were about the breadth and
thickness of an iron-hoop, and their singular form marks that they
are not of European make. Probably they are imitations of their own
original instruments, used for the same purposes. They sharpen these
iron tools upon a coarse slate whetstone, and likewise keep the whole
instrument constantly bright.
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