Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/133

handle of wood, in which is inserted a four-sided rod of wood having at the end a ferrule of antler held on by bone rivets; its length is 81 cm. A snow-probe from the Aivilingmiut on Southampton Island has a head of wood, 5 cm in diameter, rounded above and flat underneath, a rather heavier, four-sided wooden rod (1.7 cm thick), which at the end has a heavy, rounded-square ferrule of antler; length 84 cm. With a slight pressure of the hand the snow-probe is pushed down through the snow, and the Eskimo can feel the nature of it by the resistance met with. Often they use no special snow-probe but merely a ramrod or the ice-hunting harpoon; in this case a small lump of wet snow is usually stuck on the end, this freezes and thus acts as a substitute for the ferrule.

The snow having been found satisfactory, a start may be made immediately in cutting out blocks; often a layer of looser snow must first be shovelled off before cutting can commence. The most important implement in snow-house building is the snow-knife (pána). Nowadays they use single-edged, steel knives of European manufacture, but they always put the handle on themselves; it must be long enough to be gripped with two hands, must be fairly thin, with rounded edges so that it does not meet with much resistance from the snow, and must have a knob at the end to act as a stop for the hand; this knob is sometimes a separate piece of ivory lashed on, sometimes a part of the wooden handle itself.

Fig. 73 a (Itibdjeriang) is a modern snow-knife with a large, single-edged, European, iron blade and a wooden handle of the typical form; at the joint between blade and handle there is a reinforcement of musk-ox horn; 50 cm long; the thickness of the handle increases evenly to 1.6 cm at the rear end. A snow-knife from Ponds Inlet is 45 cm long, the blade accounting for 20 cm of this; the thickness of the handle grows from 1.0 cm near the blade to 1.7 at the end. Like the foregoing the blade is wedged into the handle and fastened with rivets. At the middle of the front edge of the handle there is a small projection; a unilateral knob only at the end of the handle. A third snow-knife is 37 cm long, of which the blade measures 16; the wooden handle has a unilateral knob; the blade is straight, wide, single-edged; on both sides of the fore end of the handle there is an iron mounting to strengthen it.

Fig. 73 b (Iglulingmiut, Ponds Inlet) is a sheath for a snow-knife, consisting of a piece of sealskin; in one corner a sealskin thong, 31 cm long, is tied on for suspension purposes. The length is 50 cm, the width at the top 10, at the bottom 5 cm.

The earlier form of snow-knife was of ivory, fairly slender. with a knob tied on to the handle. One of these is shown on fig. 74 a, an