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
The specimens figured show the different styles of ornamentation,
which always consist of incised patterns colored with red ocher or
rarely with soot. These never represent natural objects, but are
always conventional patterns, generally a single or double border on
two or more faces with short oblique cross-lines and branches. Harpoon
heads at Point Barrow are probably never ornamented with the “circles
and dots,” so common on other implements and on the harpoons of the
southern Eskimo.
[Illustration: FIG. 217.--Typical walrus-harpoon heads. 1/2]
Twenty-eight of the heads still have the leaders attached to them. The
object of this short line is to enable the hunter to readily detach a
broken head and put on a fresh one without going to the trouble of
undoing a splice, which must be made strong to keep the head from
separating from the line. It is made of a stout piece of rawhide
thong, the skin of the walrus or bearded seal, about one-third inch in
diameter, and usually from 2 to 3 feet long. It is always passed
through the line hole, as in the specimen described, and the ends are
made into a becket for attaching the line, with an end left to serve
as a handle for pulling the two beckets apart when the main line ends
in a becket. Occasionally (two are made this way) the longer end is
simply doubled in a bight, and the three parts are then seized
together with sinew braid, but it is generally made with a splice, the
details of which differ slightly on the different leaders.
[Illustration: FIG. 218.--Walrus-harpoon head, with leader. 1/3]
[Illustration: FIG. 219.--Walrus-harpoon head, with line. 4/9]
[Illustration: FIG. 220.--Walrus-harpoon head, with line. 1/3]
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