Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/119

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piece (kingmiaq); the bow is of caribou rib, 26 cm long, with a string of seal thong fastened to a hole and a notch at the ends of the bow. The other bows in the collection have lengths from 27 to 42 cm; some of them are of caribou rib, others of wood; on some the string is fastened to holes in both ends, or a hole at one end and a notch at the other, on others to a notch at both ends; the wooden bows are sometimes only slightly curved.

Fig. 62 b (Ponds Inlet) is a bow-drill of narwhal tusk, round, thickest at the lower part, with an iron bit, inserted in the shank; the bit is ground with four facets; length 19 cm. The other drills vary in length from 13 to 22 cm and are of wood, of antler, of walrus or narwhal tusk; they all have an iron bit, wedge-shaped or with four facets. The greatest thickness of the shanks is nearly always at the bottom, where the wood shanks in particular have a band of brass. Two of them are waisted at the middle for the string.

Fig. 62 d (Ponds Inlet) is the usual form of mouth-piece. It is a wooden block, 5.7 × 3.5 × 1.8 cm, turned in at the top and with a groove for the mouth, the lower end containing the circular hole for the upper end of the drill shank. The mouth-pieces in the collection vary in length from 3.6 to 6.6 cm; none of them are of caribou astragalus, only one is of antler. the others of wood; several of the latter are reinforced in the drill-hole by a piece of brass. Boas[1] says that at Repulse Bay a vertebra was most often used as a mouthpiece, its natural hollows serving as sockets for the drill; I have never seen such mouth-pieces, however.

Drilling proceeds in the usual manner: the mouth-piece with the socket for the upper end of the drill is placed between the teeth, whilst the piece to be drilled is held in the left hand. The drill is made to rotate by the bow, the string of which is wound once round it and which is then moved rapidly from side to side. thus making the drill cut. Lyon[2] praises their drilling, especially that they are able to drill holes in fox teeth “scarcely large enough to allow of a fine needle passing through them".

Adzes.

Adzes (qijuk) are used for working in bone and ivory. Fig. 63 (Iglulingmiut, Qajûvfik) has a wooden handle, 17 cm long, to which a European mortice-chisel 19 cm long, 2½ cm wide, is fastened as a blade; the lashing is of seal thong, and there is also an interlayer of seal skin; the acute angle between blade and shaft is characteris-

  1. ↑ 1901, p. 30.
  2. ↑ 1824, p. 128.
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