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. 72768 [162], Fig. 186_e_ from Utkiavwĭñ, has a pile 3½ inches long
with two barbs. The pile of No. 89238 [162] from the same village is 3½
inches long and has but one barb, while that of No. 89241_a_ [162] is
7.8 inches long and has three barbs. The rudely incised figure on the
shank of No. 89238 [162] represents a wolf, probably a talisman to
make the arrow as fatal to the deer as the wolf is. No. 56588 [13],
Fig. 187, is a pile for one of these arrows slightly peculiar in
shape, being elliptical in section, with one edge sharp and two-barbed
and a four-sided point. The figure shows well the shape of the tang.
The peculiarity of these arrows is that the pile is not fastened to
the shaft, but can easily be detached.[N307] When such an arrow was
shot into a deer the shaft would easily be shaken out, leaving the
sharp barbed pile in the wound.
[Footnote N307: Compare the passage in Frobisher’s Second Voyage
(Hakluyt, 1589, p. 628). After describing the different forms of
arrowheads used by the Eskimo of “Meta Incognita” (Baffin Land) in
1577 he says: “They are not made very fast, but lightly tyed to,
or else set in a nocke, that upon small occasion the arrowe
leaveth these heads behind them.”]
[Illustration: FIG. 188.--Kûñmûdlĭñ arrow pile.]
The Eskimo told us that a deer wounded in this way would “sleep once
and die,” meaning, apparently, that death would ensue in about
twenty-four hours, probably from peritonitis. The bone pile is called
nû´tkăñ, whence comes the name of the arrow, nû´tko´dlĭñ. We collected
ten arrows and three piles of this pattern. No. 89460 [1263], Fig.
188, is a peculiar bone arrow pile, perhaps intended for a deer arrow.
It is 7 inches long and made of one of the long bones of some large
bird, split lengthwise so that it is rounded on one side and deeply
concave on the other, with two thin rounded edges tapered to a sharp
point. Each edge has three little barbs about the middle of the pile.
This was the only arrowhead of the kind seen at Point Barrow, and the
native who sold it said it was a “Kûñmûd´lĭñ” arrow. I was pleased to
find the truth of this corroborated by the Museum collection. There
are two arrows from the Mackenzie region (Nos. 1106 and 1906) with
bone piles of almost the same form.
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