Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/78

Fig. 35 (Royal Scottish Museum U. C. 147) is a throwing board^[1] (nokseq) for a bird dart, likewise from Parry's Expedition. It is of wood, flat, with a hollow for the thumb, a hole for the index-finger and shallower hollows for the other three fingers, Image missingFig. 35.Throwing board (Parry's collection, Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh). a longitudinal groove for the shaft of the dart and, in the fore end, an iron peg for the end socket of the shaft; total length 42 cm.

Whether the bola has been known is uncertain. The sling (idlouk) on the other hand is known to have been used for birds, and it is often met with as a toy. A toy sling from Ponds Inlet consists of a rhombic piece of black, unhaired sealskin, 5½ × 3½ cm, with a large central hole and eight smaller holes, forming a cross; at the ends are fastened cords, one 39 cm ending in a loop and one 38 cm ending in a knot.

For catching guillemots on the bird cliffs at Ponds Inlet a catcher (kagdlun) was formerly used, consisting of a shaft about 1½ m long with a round wooden frame, about 1 m in diameter, to which was fastened a bag of seal-thong net; the birds caught were strung by means of a bone needle (nuvit).

Various snares were used for bird catching. In the lifetime of several of the Eskimos whom we met baleen snares were used for diving birds (nigatsiat): Long lines. on which were a number of nooses, were stretched below the water near the shore of shallow lakes, or nest snares: a noose (nigaq) of baleen, the other end of which was fastened to a stone near the nest. Both methods were also in use during Parry's time.^[2] Ducks especially were caught by the former method, and both geese and ducks by the latter. At Ponds Inlet loons were caught by means of small baleen snares.

Gulls were caught in several different ways: The gull hook (qard-