Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition: Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442Murdoch, John
History
Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition: Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442
Murdoch, John
Eskimos -- Alaska -- Barrow, Point, Region
No. 89584 [1107] (figured in Point Barrow Rept., Ethnology, Pl. III,
Fig. 3), will represent this class. It is a blade of dark purple
slate, ground smooth, 3.5 inches long, tapering from a width of 1.3
inches at the butt, with curved edges to a sharp point, and beveled on
both faces from the middle line to the edges, and the flat tang is
inserted into a cleft in the end of a straight haft of spruce. The
blade is secured by a whipping of about fifteen turns of sinew braid
lodged in a broad shallow groove round the end of the haft. In a hole
in the other end of the haft is looped a short lanyard of seal thong.
Fig. 99_a_, No. 89581 [1011], is a knife of the same class and about
the same size, having a haft 4 inches and a blade 3 inches long. The
blade is secured by two lashings, of which the first is a narrow strip
of whalebone, and the other of sinew braid. The materials of blade and
haft are the same as before. No. 89585 [1710] (Fig. 99_b_), has a
blade of dark gray slate, and the haft, which appears to be of cotton
wood, is in two longitudinal sections. The lashing which holds these
two sections together is of braided sinew. Of the blades, the only
sharp-pointed one, No. 56684 [228] (Fig. 100), is like the blade of
89584 [1107], but rather larger. The others all have rounded or
truncated points and are not over 3½ inches long, including the tang,
but otherwise closely resemble the blades already described. They all
show signs of considerable age and several of them are nicked and
gapped on the edge from use. Knives of this class are not like any in
use at the present day, and it was not possible to learn definitely
whether this shape served any special purpose. We were, however, given
to understand that the sharp-pointed ones were sometimes, at least,
used for stabbing. Perhaps they were used specially for cutting up the
smaller animals.
[Illustration: FIG. 100.--Slate knife-blade. 1/2]
The second class, of which there are four specimens, is not unlike the
first, but the blade is short and broad, with strongly curved edges,
and always sharp pointed, while the haft is always much longer than
the blade. Instead of being evenly beveled off on both faces from the
middle line to the edges, they are either slightly convex, worked down
gradually to the edge, or flat with narrowly beveled edges. They are
all small knives, the longest being 8.3 inches long, with the blade
projecting 3.1 inches from the haft, and the shortest 4.9 inches, with
the blade projecting only 1.4 inches.
[Illustration: FIG. 101.--Slate knife. 1/2]
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