Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/473

baleen objects belong to types which are familiar from the Central Eskimo finds. The sledge shoes have already been referred to.

Two must be looked upon as being weapon points. Pl. 79.12. 7553) has a powerful barb and is rounded at the shaft end; 11 (L 7555) is almost round, with two faint barbs and slightly pointed rear end, both are apparently leister prongs.

Of baleen knives and fragments of these there are 14 specimens two of which however are only known to have come from "excavations at Thule". Pl. 79.1 (L 7716) is a slender knife with a hand-grip at one end, with no sharp edges. Four other knives have a similar grip, one is rather narrower than the one figured and is 51 cm long; another is only 28½ cm long, but has a thick grip, formed of two pieces of baleen laid together; none of these knives have had sharp edges. 2 (L 7651) is the handle and part of the blade of a very large baleen knife; a similar large knife, not sharp either, is made of a piece of sledge shoe. Presumably these large, blunt, knife-like specimens have been used as snow beaters (compare Wissler fig. 27).

Pl. 79.3 (L 7574) on the contrary seems to have had a sharpened edge; the handle is clearly marked, with unilateral knob and suspension hole. Two smaller knives have been finished at the end of the handle in the same way, but without a hole. Another knife, 27 cm long, is symmetrical and seems to have been sharpened, at the point at any rate. 5 (L 7575) is a small, thin baleen knife, with a number of fine saw teeth in one edge. 4 (L 7718) by its shape and triangular hole resembles the Naujan knife handles with end blade socket; but whether it has been used for this purpose or not cannot be determined.

Platform Coverings. Some of the most outstanding objects in the find from Comer's Midden are large pieces of baleen mats like Qilalukan Pl. 54; Wissler shows on fig. 25 a small piece of plaiting of this kind, which he describes as a "fragment of whalebone mat or drying rack". It was only with the appearance of similar fragments at Ponds Inlet, where the Eskimos recognised them as platform coverings, that the use of these mats was finally determined. Pl. 80 (L 7642b) is one of these specimens; in all details it is the same as the specimen figured on Pl. 54 from Qilalukan, but larger, two rows of turns being tied together with a cord of baleen which runs alternately through the ends of the turns of both rows. On the specimen figured this cord is rather defective; but on another specimen exactly the same, 50 × 25 cm, it is better preserved, whereas other parts of the mat are defective; the breadth of the strips of baleen is 1½ to 2 cm. There are three other large pieces of these baleen mats as well as a large number of baleen strips which were found together and which