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
This is very like the head of the weapon called _agligak_ (modern
Greenlandic agdligak), figured by Crantz, and referred to above,
except that the barbs are opposite each other. Mr. Lucien M. Turner
tells me that it is precisely like the head of the dart used at Norton
Sound for capturing the beluga. The native who sold this specimen
called it “nuiă´kpai nû´tkoa,” “the point of a bird dart,” to which it
does bear some resemblance, though the shape of the butt and the line
holes indicate plainly that it was a _detachable_ dart head. Probably,
as in the case of the ancient bird dart point, No. 89372 [760],
referred to above, this weapon has been so long disused that the
natives have forgotten what it was. The name ă´kqlĭgûk, evidently the
same as the Greenlandic _agdligak_, is still in use, but was always
applied to the old bone harpoon heads, which are, however, of the
toggle-head pattern (described below). It seems as if the Point Barrow
natives had forgotten all about the ă´kqlĭgûk except that it was a
harpoon with a bone head for taking seals. At the present time the
small bladder float, permanently attached to the shaft of the harpoon,
is never used at Point Barrow. That it was used in ancient times is
shown by our finding in one of the ruined houses in Utkiavwĭñ a very
old broken nozzle for inflating one of these floats. Fig. 202, No.
89720 [756], is this specimen, which was picked up by Capt. Herendeen.
This is a rounded tube of fossil ivory, 1.3 inches long and about
one-half inch in diameter, slightly contracted toward one end and then
expanded into a stout collar. At the other is a stout longitudinal
flange, three-fourths inch long, perforated with an oblong slot.
Between the flange and the collar the surface is roughened with
crosscuts, and the other end is still choked with the remains of a
wooden plug. This nozzle was inserted into a hole in the bladder as
far as the flange and secured by tying the bladder above the collar.
The whole was then secured to the shaft by a lashing through the slot,
and could be inflated at pleasure and corked up with the wooden plug.
[Illustration: FIG. 202.--Nozzle for bladder float.]
[Illustration: FIG. 203.--Seal dart. 1/12]
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