The commonest weapon of offense was a broad dagger made of a bone of the polar bear. This was said to be especially meant for killing a “bad man,” possibly for certain specified offenses or perhaps in cases of insanity. Insane persons were sometimes killed in Greenland, and the act was considered “neither decidedly admissible nor altogether unlawful.”[N288] The use of bears’ bones for these weapons points to some superstitious idea, perhaps having reference to the ferocity of the animal. We collected five specimens of these daggers, of which No. 89484 [767], Fig. 174, has been selected as the type. It is the distal end of the ulna of a polar bear, with the neck and condyles forming the hilt, and the shaft split so as to expose the medullary cavity and cut into a pointed blade. It is very old, blackened, and crumbling on the surface, and is a foot long. [Footnote N288: Rink, Tales and Traditions, p. 35.] Fig. 175_a_, No. 89475 [988], from Nuwŭk, is made of a straight splinter from the shaft of one of the long bones, 9¾ inches long. No. 89480 [1141], from Utkiavwĭñ, has a roughly whittled hilt and a somewhat twisted blade, rather narrow, but widened to a sharp lanceolate point. It is 12 inches long. No. 89481 [1175], from the same place, has the roughly shaped hilt whipped with two turns of sinew. No. 89482 [1709], Fig. 175_b_, also from Utkiavwĭñ, is dirk-shaped, having but one edge and a straight back. The hilt, as before, is roughly sawed from the solid head of the bone. No. 89485 [965], Fig. 176, from Nuwŭk, was also said to be a dagger, but could not have been a very effective weapon. It is of whale’s bone, 5 inches long. It is rather rudely carved, old, and dirty, but the notches on the haft are newly cut. [Illustration: FIG. 174.--Dagger of bear’s bone.] [Illustration: FIG. 175.--Bone daggers.] Dirks or daggers of bear’s bone, like those described, are really rather formidable weapons, as it is easy to give the splinter of bone a very keen point. The Museum contains a bone dagger curiously like these Eskimo weapons, but made of the bone of the grizzly bear, and used by the Indians of the McCloud River, northern California. They believe that the peculiar shape of the point, having a hollow (the medullary cavity) on one face, like the Eskimo daggers, causes the wound to bleed internally. PROJECTILE WEAPONS.