_Firearms._--When Dease and Simpson first met these people, in 1837, they had no firearms, but the next party of whites who came in contact with them (Pullen and Hooper, in 1849) found the “chief” in possession of an old shaky musket of English make, with the name “Barnett” on the lock.[N289] Hooper believed this to be the gun lost by Sir John Franklin’s party in 1826.[N290] This gun was, however, often seen by the people of the _Plover_ (in fact, Capt. Maguire kept it on board of the _Plover_ for some time[N291]), and was found to have on the lock, besides the name “Barnett,” also the date, “1843,” so that of course it was not lost in 1826. Armstrong[N292] also mentions seeing this gun, which, the natives told him, they had procured “from the other tribes to the southward.” In the summer of 1853 they began to purchase guns and ammunition from the eastern natives. Yûksĭña and two other men each bought a gun this year.[N293] [Footnote N289: Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 239.] [Footnote N290: Franklin, 2d Exp., p. 148. In the hurry of leaving Barter Island “one of the crew of the _Reliance_ left his gun and ammunition.”] [Footnote N291: See McClure’s N. W. Passage, p. 390.] [Footnote N292: Narrative, p. 109.] [Footnote N293: Maguire, Further Papers, p. 907.] [Illustration: FIG. 176.--So-called dagger of bone. 1/2] As the whalers began to go to Point Barrow in 1854, the opportunity for obtaining firearms has been afforded the natives every year since then, so that they are now well supplied with guns, chiefly of American manufacture. That all their firearms have not been obtained from this source is probable from the fact they have still in their possession a number of smoothbore percussion guns, double and single barreled, of Russian manufacture. They are all stamped in Russian with the name of Tula, a town on the Oopa, 105 miles south of Moscow, which has received the name of the “Sheffield and Birmingham of Russia,” from its vast manufactory of arms, established by Peter the Great. These guns must have come from the “Nunatañmiun,” who obtained them either from the Siberian traders or from the Russians at Norton Sound through the Malemiut. Both smoothbore and rifled guns are in general use. The smoothbores are of all sorts and descriptions, from an old flintlock musket to more or less valuable single and double percussion fowling-pieces. Three of the natives now (1883) have cheap double breechloaders and one a single breechloader (made by John P. Lovell, of Boston). Guns in general are called “cupûñ,” an onomatopœic word in general use in western America, but many of the different kinds have special names. For instance, a double gun is called madro´lĭñ (from _madro_, _two_). The rifles are also of many different patterns. The kind preferred by the natives is the ordinary Winchester brass-mounted 15-shot repeater, which the whalers and traders purchase cheaply at wholesale.