“The seals themselves make sometimes holes in the Ice, where they come and draw breath; near such a hole a Greenlander seats himself on a stool, putting his feet on a lower one to keep them from the cold. Now when the seal comes and puts its nose to the hole, he pierces it instantly with his harpoon.” Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 156.] _Seal drags (uksiu´tiñ.)_--Every seal hunter carries with him a line for dragging home his game, consisting of a stout thong doubled in a bight about 18 inches long, with an ivory handle or knob at the other end. The bight is looped into an incision in the seal’s lower jaw, while the knob serves for attaching a longer line or the end of a dog’s harness. The seal is dragged on his back and runs as smoothly as a sled. We collected eight of these drag lines, from which I have selected No. 56624 [44], Fig. 257_a_, as the type. [Illustration: FIG. 257.--Seal drags and handles. 1/2] This consists of a stout thong of rawhide (the skin of the bearded seal) 0.3 inch wide and 37 inches long, and doubled in a bight so that one end is about 2½ inches the longer. These ends are fastened into a handle of walrus ivory, consisting of three pieces, namely: a pair of neatly carved mittens, respectively 1.9 and 1.8 inches long, put together wrist to wrist with the palms up; and lying across the joint above, a little seal 1¼ inches long, belly down. A hole runs through each wrist and through the belly of the seal. The mittens are ornamented on the back with a blackened incised pattern, and the seal has blue glass beads for eyes and blackened incised spots on the back. The longer end of the thong runs up through the right mitten, across through the seal, and down through the left mitten. It is then passed through a slit 1 inch from the end of the shorter part and slit itself. Through this slit is passed the bight of the thong, all drawn up taut and seized with sinew braid. No. 89467 [755], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a similar drag, put together in much the same way, but it has the mittens doweled together with two wooden pins, and a seal’s head with round bits of wood inlaid for eyes, ears, and nostrils, in place of the seal. The longitudinal perforation in this head shows that it was originally strung lengthwise on one of these lines. The “double slit splice” of the two ends of the thong is worked into a complicated round knot, between which and the handle the two parts of the line are confined by a tube of ivory 1 inch long, ornamented with deeply incised patterns. Fig. 257_b_ is the upper part of a line (No. 56622 [36], from Utkiavwĭñ), with a similar tube 1¾ inches long, and a handle carved from a single piece into a pair of mittens like the others.