Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/81

hanging on cords and a lead ball as a sinker. The collection includes other 13 salmon decoys without lines and handles; they are all of ivory, roughly carved, their lengths varying from 2½ to 7 cm. Only one (Fig. 39 b) from Repulse Bay, is more carefully executed, slender, 6.4 cm long, pierced by a large, horizontal hole, with two dorsal fins, pectoral fins, ventral fins and anal fins. Lyon^[1] mentions a salmon decoy of ivory with eyes of pyrites.

Fish hooks (qardjorsaq). Fig. 38.3 (Iglulik) has an iron hook with barb (a store article), inserted in a shank of ivory, in which it is held by a short, thick wooden peg and a cross lashing of sinew-thread; the length of the hook is 4.5, that of the shank 5.6 cm. The line is of 3-ply sinew-thread. 1.90 cm long; the bent handle, of wood, is 25 cm long; it can be used for reeling up the line. A similar fish. hook, but without a barb on the hook, is figured by Parry.^[2]

The ice scoop (ilaut). Fig. 38.2 (Iglulik) is a wooden handle and a scoop of musk ox horn. held together by a sinew-thread lashing through two holes in the upper end of the scoop. At one place the scoop has cracked and has been repaired with sinew-thread. Total length 59 cm. Two other ice-scoops. from Iglulik and Qajûvfik, are only 5–6 cm wide.^[3]

The ice pick (tûk) is a wooden shaft, 1½–2 m long, with at one end an iron chisel, now most frequently bought from the store; before the introduction of iron, ivory or antler were used. The butt end of the shaft is thick, partly to give more weight, partly to prevent it from splitting easily.

The method of fishing nowadays is a follows: A hole about 40 × 25 cm is hewn in the ice with the ice pick; if the ice is thicker than 20–30 cm the hole must be made bigger. At this hole the fisherman sits down with his back to the wind; with the left hand he moves the decoy up and down in the water with short, regular jerks at about a second's interval. The salmon spear has been inserted obliquely into the hole and rests against the edge. When a salmon approaches, attracted by the supposed fish, the decoy is drawn upwards; the salmon will then follow it and, when it has come up high enough it is struck with the spear; it is then pierced by the middle prong and held by the barbs of the elastic side prongs; it is drawn up, shaken off the spear and killed, the spine being cut behind the head with a knife that is stuck into the ice beside the hole, or it is given a blow behind the head with the shaft of the spear, etc. The ice scoop is used for keeping the hole clear of pieces