[Illustration: FIG. 241.--Bear lance. 1/12] [Illustration: FIG. 242.--Flint head for bear lance. 1/2] One form of lance is still in general use. It has a sharp metal head, and a light wooden shaft about 6 feet long. It is used in the kaiak for stabbing deer swimming in the water, after the manner frequently noticed among other Eskimo.[N339] A pair of these spears is carried in beckets on the forward deck of the kaiak. On approaching a deer one of them is slipped out of the becket and laid on the deck, with the butt resting on the combing of the cockpit. The hunter then paddles rapidly up alongside of the deer, grasps the lance near the butt, as he would a dagger, and stabs the animal with a quick downward thrust. This spear is called kă´pun, which in the Point Barrow dialect exactly corresponds to the Greenlandic word kapût, which is applied to the long-bladed spear or long knife used for dispatching a harpooned seal.[N340] The word kă´pun means simply “an instrument for stabbing.” [Footnote N339: Parry, 2d Voy., p. 512 (Iglulik); Kumlien, Contributions, p. 54 (Cumberland Gulf); Schwatka, Science, vol. 4, No. 98, p. 544 (King Williams Land).] [Footnote N340: Crantz, vol. 1, p. 147, Pl. V, Fig. 5; and Kane, 1st Grinnell Exp., p. 479 (fig. at bottom).] [Illustration: FIG. 243.--Deer Lance. 1/12 1/3] [Illustration: FIG. 244.--Part of deer lance, with flint head. 1/2] No. 73183 [524], Figs. 243_a_, 243_b_ (head enlarged), will serve as a type of this weapon, of which we have two specimens. All that we saw were essentially like this. The head is iron, 4¾ inches long exclusive of the tang, and 1½ inches broad. The edges are narrowly beveled on both faces. The shaft is 6 feet 2 inches long, and tapers from a diameter of 0.8 inch about the middle to about one-half inch at each end. The tip is cleft to receive the tang of the head, and shouldered to keep the whipping from slipping off. The latter was of sinew braid and 2 inches deep. The shaft is painted with red ocher. The other has a shaft 6 feet 4 inches long, but otherwise resembles the preceding. The heads for these lances are not always made of iron. Copper, brass, etc., are sometimes used. No. 56699 [166] is one of a pair of neatly made copper lance heads. It is 5.9 inches long and 1½ wide, and ground down on each face to a sharp edge without a bevel, except just at the point. Before the introduction of iron these lances had stone heads, but were otherwise of the same shape. Fig. 244 represents the head and 6 inches of the shaft of one of these (No. 89900 [1157] from Nuwŭk). The shaft is new and rather carelessly made of a rough, knotty piece of spruce, and is 5 feet 5¾ inches long. The head is of black flint and 2 inches long, exclusive of the tang, and the tip of the shaft is whipped with a narrow strip of light-colored whalebone, the end of which is secured by passing it through a slit in the side of the shaft