Page:Archæology of the Central Eskimos.djvu/494

There was a problem when proofreading this page.
313

specimen from Qilalukan (Pl. 41.7); the central hole is however replaced by a groove; the hole apparently originates from a previous employment of the object.

Wound plugs. Six specimens, all slender, needle shaped, of caribou leg bone; four are sharply triangular, one almost round and one ensiform. The head is large; only the longest of the specimens has a clearly marked neck. The lengths vary from 10.2 to 14.7 cm. Pl. 82.4 (P 12.108) shows one of the triangular specimens.

Image missing
Fig. 108.Arrow Head with Owners Mark. Malerualik. 2:3.

Bows. There is no definite specimen. A small piece of wood is shaped like the cut-off end of a bow with a nock for the string, but otherwise is quite sharpedged and unworked. Two flat pieces of antler, pointed and dwindling towards the ends, may have been reinforcing pieces for bows, but the classification is uncertain; one of them, 13.8 cm long, has holes in the ends and is covered with lashing notches.

Arrow heads. These occupy a fairly prominent position in the find, as might be expected in an important caribou country; there are in all 36 arrow heads and fragments.

1. Large arrow heads without inserted blade, for caribou hunting. The predominant type will be seen on Pl. 82.5–7 (P 12. 93, 117 and 45) and fig. 108 (P 12.118). These are strong arrow heads of antler with conical tang with two knobs and with one powerful barb, which is clearly set off from the stem by a longitudinal groove or a step; on some the blade is short, as on 5, while others are longer, as on 6. Three of the specimens (Pl. 82.6–7 and fig. 108) have, on one side of the blade, near the base of the barb, scratched lines which can hardly be considered as being other than owner's marks, which are known from very similar arrows from Alaska.[1] One has a pair of oblique lines, another two pairs, a third has 6 oblique lines on one side and 2 on the other. Pl. 82.5 has, on the stem between the barb and the tang, a deep longitudinal groove and 10 short oblique lines; but whether this is to be taken as an owner mark or is only put on to prevent the object from bending, must be left open. Six other specimens, all defective, and three unfinished heads, all belong to this type. Six specimens are

  1. ↑ Wissler 1916, p. 428. These have the owner's mark further down the stem; but in Knud Rasmussen's collection from Barter Island there are arrow heads with owner marks in the same place as the Malerualik specimens.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.