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
II. The Arctic type, to which the bows just described belong, in use
from the Kaviak peninsula to the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers; and
III. The Western type, confined to St. Lawrence Island and the
mainland of Siberia.
I have shown how these three types differ from each other and from the
original type, and have expressed the opinion that these differences
result from the different resources at the command of the people of
different regions. I have also endeavored to account for the fact that
we find sporadic examples of the Arctic type, for instance as far
south as the Yukon, by the well known habits of the Eskimo in regard
to trading expeditions.
Outside of the region treated in my paper above referred to, there is
very little material for a comparative study of Eskimo bows, either in
the Museum or in the writings of travelers. Most writers have
contented themselves with a casual reference to some of the more
salient peculiarities of the weapon without giving any detailed
information. Beginning at the extreme north of Greenland, we find that
the so-called “Arctic Highlanders” have hardly any knowledge of the
bow. Dr. Kane saw none during his intercourse with them, but Dr.
Bessels[N295] mentions seeing one bow, made of pieces of antler
spliced together, in the possession of a man at Ita. In Danish
Greenland, the use of the bow has been abandoned for many years. When
Crantz[N296] wrote it had already gone out of use, though in
Egede’s[N297] time it was still employed. It appears to have been
longer than the other Eskimo bows. Nordenskiöld[N298] reproduces a
picture of a group of Greenlanders from an old painting of the date of
1654 in the Ethnographical Museum of Copenhagen. The man holds in his
left hand a straight bow, which appears to have the backing reaching
only part way to the ends like a western bow without the end cables,
and yet twisted into two cables. If this representation be a correct
one, this arrangement of the backing, taken in connection with what
Crantz and Egede say of the great length of the bow, would be an
argument in favor of my theory that the St. Lawrence Island bow was
developed from the primitive form by lengthening the ends of the bow
without lengthening the backing. The addition of the end cables would
then be an after invention, peculiar to the western bow. In Baffin
Land the bow is very rudely made, and approaches very closely to my
supposed primitive form. Owing to the scarcity of wood in this region
the bow was frequently made of reindeer antler, a substance still more
unsuitable for the purpose than the soft coniferous woods used
elsewhere. There are in the Museum three specimens of such antler
bows, brought from Cumberland Gulf by Mr. Kumlien.
[Footnote N295: Naturalist, vol 8, No. 9, p. 869.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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