Part 32

_Nets (Kubra)._--The most important fishery at the rivers is carried on by means of gill-nets, set under the ice, and visited every few days. In these are taken large numbers of all three species of whitefish (Coregonus kenicotti, C. nelsoni, and C. laurettæ.) The collection contains three specimens of these nets, two of whalebone and one of sinew. No. 56754 [147], Fig. 275, is a typical whalebone net. It is long and shallow, 79 meshes long and 21 deep, made of fine strips of whalebone fastened together as in the whalebone fishing lines. Most of the whalebone is black, but a few light colored strips are intermixed at random. The length of the mesh is 3¼ inches, and the knot used in making them is the ordinary netting-knot. When not in use the net is rolled up into a compact ball and tied up with a bit of string. When set, this net is 21 feet 7 inches long and 3 feet 4 inches deep. The other whalebone net (No. 56753 [172], also from Utkiavwĭñ), is similar to this, but slightly larger, being 87 meshes (25 feet) long and 22 (3 feet 9 inches) deep. The length of mesh is 3½ inches. Fig. 276 (unit of web) is a net (No. 56752 [171] from the same village) of the same mesh and depth, but 284 meshes (60 feet) long and made of twisted sinew twine.

I had no opportunity of seeing the method of setting these nets under the ice, but it is probably the same as that used in setting the seal nets. When in camp at Pernyû in the summer, the natives set these nets in the shoal water of Elson Bay, at right angles to the beach, with a stake at each end of the net. They are set by a man in a kayak, and in them are gilled considerable numbers of whitefish, two species of salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha and O. nerka) and an occasional trout (Salvelinus malma). They take these nets east with them on their summer expeditions, but we did not learn the method of using them at this season. Perhaps they are sometimes used for seining on the beach, as Thomas Simpson says that the Eskimo at Herschel Island (probably Kûñmûd´lĭñ) sold his party “some fine salmon trout, taken in a seine of whalebone, which they dragged ashore by means of several slender poles spliced together to a great length.”[N391]

[Footnote N391: Narrative, p. 115.]

An Utkiavwĭñ native told us that he found trout (Salvelinus malma) so plentiful at or near the mouth of the Colville, in 1882, that he fed his dogs with them.

Fig. 277 is a peculiar net or fish-trap (No. 56755 [190]) from Utkiavwĭñ, the only specimen of the kind seen. It is a conical, wide-mouthed bag, 8 feet 4 inches long and 5½ feet wide at the mouth, netted all in one piece of twisted sinew, with a 2¼-inch mesh. This was brought over for sale at an early date, before we were well acquainted with the natives, and we only learned that it was set permanently for catching fish. Unfortunately, we never saw another specimen, and through the press of other duties never happened to make further inquiries about it. From its shape it would appear as if it were meant to be set in a stream with the mouth towards the current. This contrivance is called sápotĭn, which corresponds to the Greenlandic saputit, a dam for catching fish.

From all accounts, the natives east of the Anderson River region were ignorant of the use of the net before they made the acquaintance of the whites,[N392] though they now use it in several places, as in Greenland and Labrador. The earliest explorers on the northwest coast, however, found both fish and seal nets in use, though, as I have already mentioned, the seal net was spoken of at Point Barrow as a comparatively recent invention. At the present day, nets are used all along the coast from the Mackenzie and Anderson rivers (see MacFarlane’s Collection) as far south at least as the Yukon delta.[N393] I have not been able to learn whether gill nets are used in the delta of the Kuskoquim. Petroff[N394] mentions fish traps and dip nets merely. That the natives of Kadiak formerly had no nets I infer from Petroff’s statement[N395] that “of late they have begun to use seines of whale sinew.” Nets are generally used on the Siberian coast. We observed them ourselves at Plover Bay, and Nordenskiöld[N396] describes the nets used at Pitlekaj, which are made of sinew thread. It is almost certain that the American Eskimo learned the use of the net from the Siberians, as they did the habit of smoking, since the use of the gill net appears to have been limited to precisely the same region as the Siberian form of tobacco pipe.[N397]

[Footnote N392: The Greenlanders used a sort of sieve or scoop net, not seen at Point Barrow, for catching caplin (Mallotus villosus). Egede, Greenland, p. 108; and Crantz, vol. 1, p. 95. John Davis, however, says of the Greenlanders in 1586, “They make nets to take their fish of the finne of a whale.” Hakluyt’s Voyages, etc. (1589), p. 782.]

[Footnote N393: Dall, Alaska, p. 147; and Petroff, Report, etc., p. 127.]

[Footnote N394: Op cit., p. 73.]

[Footnote N395: Op cit., p. 142.]

[Footnote N396: Vega, vol. 2, p. 109.]

[Footnote N397: See the writer’s paper in the American Anthropologist, vol. 1, pp. 325-336.]

_Spears._--The only evidence which we have of the use of spears for catching fish in this region is a single specimen, No. 89901 [1227], Fig. 278, from Utkiavwĭñ, which was newly and rather carelessly made for sale, but intended, as we were told, for spearing fish. This has a roughly whittled shaft, of spruce, 21½ inches long, armed at one end with three prongs. The middle prong is of whalebone, 4⅓ inches long, inserted into the tip of the shaft, which is cut into a short neck and whipped with sinew. The side prongs are also of bone, 9 inches long. Through the tip of each is driven a sharp, slender slightly recurved spur of bone, about 1½ inches long. Each prong is fastened to the shaft with two small wooden treenails, and they are braced with a figure-of-eight lashing of sinew through holes in the side prongs and around the middle one. The side prongs are somewhat elastic, so that when the spear is struck down on the back of a fish they spring apart and allow the middle prong to pierce him, and then spring back so that the spurs either catch in his sides or meet below his belly, precisely on the principle of the “patent eel spear.” This implement is almost identical with one in the National Museum from Hudson Bay, which appears to be in general use among the eastern Eskimo.[N398] The name, kăki´bua, is very nearly the same as that used by the eastern natives (kākkĭe-wĕi, Parry, and kakívak, Kumlien). This spear is admirably adapted for catching large fish in shallow rocky streams where a net can not be used, or where they are caught by dams in tidal streams in the manner described by Egede and Crantz. There is so little tide, however, on the northwest coast, that this method of fishing can not be practiced, and, as far as I know, there is no locality in the range of the Point Barrow natives, a region of open shoal beaches, and rivers free of rocks, where this spear could be used in which a net would not serve the purpose much better. Taking into consideration the scarcity of these spears and the general use of nets, I am inclined to believe that this spear is an ancient weapon, formerly in general use, but driven out of fashion by the introduction of nets.

[Footnote N398: Kumlien’s description (Contributions, p. 37, Cumberland Gulf) would apply almost word for word to this spear, and Captain Parry, (Second Voyage, p. 509) describes a very similar one in use at Iglulik. The “Perch, headed with two sharp-hooked Bones,” for spearing salmon--called in the Grenlandsk Ordbog, kakiak, “en Lyster (med to eller tre Pigge)”--mentioned by Egede (Greenland, p. 108) is probably the same thing, and a similar spear is spoken of by Rae (Narrative, p. 172) as in use at Repulse Bay. A similar weapon, described by Dr. Rink as “Mit einem in brittischen Columbien vorkommenden identisch,” was found in east Greenland (Deutsche Geographische Blätter, vol. 9, p. 234). See the description of the spear found by Schwatka at Back’s Great Fish River (Nimrod in the North, p. 139), also described by Klutschak (Als Eskimo, etc., p. 120).]

FLINT WORKING.

These people still retain the art of making flint arrow and spearheads, and other implements such as the blades for the skin scrapers to be hereafter described. Many of the flint arrowheads and spear points already described were made at Nuwŭk or Utkiavwĭñ especially for sale to us and are as finely formed and neatly finished as any of the ancient ones. The flints, in many cases water-worn pebbles, appear to have been splintered by percussion into fragments of suitable sizes, and these sharp-edged spalls are flaked into shape by means of a little instrument consisting of a short, straight rod of some hard material mounted in a short curved haft. We collected nine of these tools (kĭ´gli) of which two have no blades. No. 89262 [1223] figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. III, Fig. 7, has been selected as the type. The handle is of walrus ivory, 7.8 inches long, straight and nearly cylindrical for about 4½ inches, then bending down like a saw handle and spread out into a spatulate butt. Fitted into a deep groove on the top of the handle so that its tip projects 1.8 inches beyond the tip of the latter is a slender four-sided rod of whale’s bone, 4.7 inches long. This is held in place by two simple lashings, one of cotton twine and the other of seal thong. The flint to be flaked is held in the left hand and pressed against the fleshy part of the palm which serves as a cushion and is protected by wearing a thick deer-skin mitten. The tool is firmly grasped well forward in the right hand with the thumb on top of the blade and by pressing the point steadily on the edge of the flint, flakes of the desired size are made to fly off from the under surface.

These tools vary little in pattern, but are made of different materials. Hard bone appears to have been the commonest material for the blade, as three out of the seven blades are of this substance. One specimen (No. 89263 [796] from Utkiavwĭñ) has a blade of iron of the same shape but only 2 inches long. No. 89264 [1001] also from Utkiavwĭñ, Fig. 279_a_, has a short blade of black flint flaked into a four-sided rod 1½ inches long. This is held in place by a whipping of stout seal thong tightened by thrusting a splinter of wood in at the back of the groove.

Two specimens (Nos. 89260 [794] Fig. 279_b_ and 89261 [1216] both from Utkiavwĭñ) have blades of the peculiar Nuɐsuknan concretions previously described. Each is an oblong pebble wedged into the groove and secured by a lashing as usual. No. 89260 [794] has a haft of antler. This is rather the commonest material for the haft. Two specimens have hafts of walrus ivory and three of fossil ivory. The length of the haft is from 6 to 8 inches, of the blade 1.5 to 4.7 inches. Fig. 280 (No. 89265 [979] from Nuwŭk) is the haft of one of these tools, made of fossil ivory, yellow from age and stained brown in blotches, which shows the way in which the groove for the blade was excavated, namely, by boring a series of large round holes and cutting away the material between them. The remains of the holes are still to be seen in the bottom of the groove. The tip of this haft has been roughly carved into a bear’s head with the eyes and nostrils incised and filled with black dirt, and the eyes, nostrils, and mouth of a human face have been rudely incised on the under side of the butt and also blackened. All this carving is new and was done with the view of increasing the market value of the object. The original ornamentation consists of an incised pattern on the upper surface of the butt, colored with red ocher which has turned black from age and dirt.

Fig. 281 (No. 89782 [1004_e_]) is one of these tools, very neatly made, with a haft of reindeer antler and a bone blade, secured by a whipping of seal thong which belongs with the “kit” of tools owned by the “inland” native, Ilû´bw’ga. Mr. Nelson collected a number of specimens of this tool at various points on the northwest coast from Point Hope as far south as Norton Bay, but I can find no evidence of its use elsewhere.

FIRE MAKING.

_Drills._--In former times fire was obtained in the method common to so many savages, from the heat developed by the friction of the end of a stick worked like a drill against a piece of soft wood. This instrument was still in use at least as late as 1837,[N399] but appears to have been wholly abandoned at Point Barrow at the time of the _Plover’s_ visit, though still in use at Kotzebue Sound.[N400]

[Footnote N399: “Their own clumsy method of producing fire is by friction with two pieces of dry wood in the manner of a drill.”--(T. Simpson, Narrative, p. 162.)]

[Footnote N400: Dr. Simpson, op. cit., p. 242.]

A native of Nuwŭk one day brought down for sale what he said was an exact model of the ancient fire drill, nióotĭñ. This is No. 89822 [1080], Fig. 282. The drill is a stick of pine 12 inches long, shaped like the shaft of a common perforating drill, brought to a blunt but rounded point. This is worked by a string, without bow or handles, consisting of a strip of the skin of the bearded seal, 40 inches long, and has for a mouthpiece the astragalus bone of a reindeer, the natural hollow on one side serving as a socket for the butt of the drill.[N401] The point of the drill is made to work against the split surface of a stick of spruce 18 inches long, along the middle of which is cut a gash, to give the drill a start. Three equidistant circular pits, charred and blackened, were bored out by the tip of the drill, which developed heat enough to set fire to the sawdust produced. Tinder was probably used to catch and hold the fire.

[Footnote N401: Compare Nordenskiöld’s figure of the fire drill in use at Pitlekaj (Vega, vol. 2, p. 121), which has a similar bone for a socket, held not in the mouth but in the left hand.]

Most authors who have treated of the Eskimo have described an instrument of this sort in use either in former times or at the present day.[N402]

[Footnote N402: Bessels, Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 867, speaks of a fire drill used at Smith Sound with a bow and a mouthpiece of ivory.

A Greenlander; seen by John Davis, in 1586, “beganne to kindle a fire, in his manner: he took a piece of a boord, wherein was a hole halfe thorow: into that he puts the end of a roũd sticke like unto a bedstaffe, wetting the end thereof in traine, and in fashion of a turner, with a piece of lether, by his violent motion doth very speedily produce fire.”--Hakluyt’s Voyages, etc. (1589), p. 782.

“They take a short Block of dry Fir Tree, upon which they rub another Piece of hard Wood, till by the continued Motion the Fir catches Fire.”--Egede, Greenland, p. 137.

“If their fire goes out, they can kindle it again by turning round a stick very quick with a string through a hole in a piece of wood.”--Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 145.

Lyon (Journal, p. 210) says that at Iglulik they were able to procure “fire by the friction of a pin of wood in the hole of another piece and pressed down like a drill from above.” This was worked with a bow and willow catkins were used for tinder. A man informed them that “he had learned it from his father rather for amusement than for utility; the two lumps of iron pyrites certainly answering the purpose a great deal better.”

“They have a very dextrous Method of kindling Fire; in order to which, they prepare two small Pieces of dry Wood, which having made flat, they next make a small Hole in each, and having fitted into these Holes a little cylindrical Piece of Wood, to which a Thong is fastened, they whirl it about thereby with such a Velocity, that by rubbing the Pieces of Wood one against the other, this Motion soon sets them on fire.”--Ellis, Voyage to Hudsons Bay, p. 234.

A picture of the process is given opposite page 132, in which a man holds the socket, while a woman works the thong (western shore of Hudson Bay, near Chesterfield Inlet).

Rae also mentions a similar drill used in the same region in 1847 (Narrative, p. 187); and there is a specimen in the National Museum, collected by MacFarlane, and said to be the kind “in use until lately” in the Mackenzie and Anderson region.

Dall figures a fire drill with bow and mouthpiece formerly in use at Norton Sound (Alaska, p. 142); and Hooper (Tents, etc., p. 187) describes a similar drill at Plover Bay.

From Nordenskiöld’s account (Vega, vol. 2, p. 121) the fire drill seems to be still generally used by the natives at the Vega’s winter quarters. He says that the women appeared more accustomed to the use of the drill than the men, and that a little oil was put on the end of the drill.]

Among most Eskimo, however, a bow is used to work the drill. The only exceptions to this rule appears to have been the ancient Greenlanders and the people of Hudson Bay (see the passages from Hakluyt, Crantz, and Ellis, just quoted.) Chamisso, however,[N403] speaks of seeing the Aleutians at Unalaska produce fire by means of a stick worked by a string making two turns about the stick and held and drawn with both hands, with the upper end of the stick turning in a piece of wood held in the mouth. When a piece of fir was turned against another piece of the same wood fire was often produced in a few seconds. This passage appears to have escaped the usually keen observation of Mr. W. H. Dall, who, speaking of the ancient Aleutians, says: “The ‘fiddle-bow drill’ was an instrument largely used in their carving and working bone and ivory; but for obtaining fire but two pieces of quarz were struck together,” etc.[N404]

[Footnote N403: Kotzebue’s Voyage, vol. 3, p. 260.]

[Footnote N404: Contribution to N. A. Ethnology, vol. 1, p. 82.]

I had no opportunity of seeing this drill manipulated, but I have convinced myself by experiment that the stick or “light-stock,” to use Nordenskiöld’s expression, must be held down by one foot, the workman kneeling on the other knee.

_Flint and steel._--Fire is usually obtained nowadays by striking a spark in the ordinary method from a bit of flint with a steel, usually a bit of some white man’s tool. Both are carried, as in Dr. Simpson’s time, in a little bag slung around the neck, along with some tinder made of the down of willow catkins mixed with charcoal or perhaps gunpowder. The flints usually carried for lighting the pipe, the only ones I have seen, are very small, and only a tiny fragment of tinder is lighted which is placed on the tobacco. Lucifer matches (kĭlĭăksagan) were eagerly begged, but they did not appear to care enough for them to purchase them. Our friend Nĭkawáalu, from whom we obtained much information about the ancient customs of these people, told us that long ago, “when there was no iron and no flint”--“savik píñmût, ánma píñmût”[N405]--they used to get “great fire” by striking together two pieces of iron pyrites. Dr. Simpson speaks[N406] of two lumps of iron pyrites being used for striking fire, but he does not make it clear whether he saw this at Point Barrow or only at Kotzebue Sound. Iron pyrites appears to have been used quite generally among the Eskimo. Bessels saw it used with quartz at Smith Sound, with willow catkins for tinder[N407] and Lyon mentions the use of two pieces of the same material, with the same kind of tinder, at Iglulik.[N408] Willow catkins are also used for tinder at the Coppermine River.[N409]

[Footnote N405: Compare this with Dr. Simpson’s statement, quoted above, that stones for arrowheads were brought by the Nunatañmiun from the Ku´wûk River.]

[Footnote N406: Op. cit., p. 243.]

[Footnote N407: Naturalist, vol. 18, pt. 9, p. 867.]

[Footnote N408: Journal, pp. 210 and 231.]

[Footnote N409: Franklin, First Exped., vol. 2, p. 188.]

No. 89825 [1133 and 1722] are some of the catkins used for making the tinder, which were gathered in considerable quantities at the rivers. They are called kĭmmiuru, which perhaps means “little dogs,” as we say “catkins” or “pussy willows.”

_Kindlings._--From the same place they also brought home willow twigs, 9 inches long, and tied with sinews into bunches or fagots of about a dozen or a dozen and a half each, which they said were used for kindling fires. (No. 89824 [1725].)

BOW-AND-ARROW MAKING.

A complete set of bow-and-arrow tools consists of 4 pieces, viz: a marline spike, two twisters, and a feather setter, as shown in Fig. 283, No. 89465 [962], from Utkiavwĭñ. The pieces of this set are perforated and strung on a piece of sinew braid, 4 inches long, with a knot at each end.

_The Marline spike._--This is a flat, four-sided rod of walrus ivory, 5-6 inches long, tapering to a sharp rounded point at one end, and tapered slightly to the other, which terminates in a small rounded knob. It is very neatly made from, rather old yellow ivory, and ornamented on all four faces with conventional incised patterns colored with red ochre.

This implement is used in putting on the backing of a bow to raise parts of the cord when an end is to be passed under and in tucking in the ends in finishing off a whipping. It was probably also used in putting whippings or seizings on any other implements. We collected 10 of these tools, all quite similar, and made of walrus ivory, yellow from age and handling. They vary in length from 4½ to 6 inches, and are always contracted at the upper end into a sort of neck or handle, surmounted by a knob or crossbar. No. 89463 [836] Fig. 284, from Utkiavwĭñ has the crossbar carved very neatly into the figure of an Amphipod crustacean without the legs. The eyes, mouth, and vent are indicated by small round holes filled with some black substance, and there is a row of eight similar holes down the middle of the back. The tip of this tool, which is 5.9 inches long, has been concaved to an edge so as to make a feather-setter of it. Through the knob at the butt there is sometimes a large round eye, as in Fig. 285 (No. 89464 [842] from Utkiavwĭñ, 4.7 inches long). These tools are sometimes plain, like the specimens last figured, and sometimes ornamented with conventional patterns of incised lines, colored with red ocher, like the others.

_The twisters_ (No. 89465 [962]) are flat four-sided rods of walrus ivory, respectively 4.4 and 4.7 inches long. At each end one broad face is raised into a low transverse ridge about 0.1 inch high and the other rounded off, with the ridge on opposite faces at the two ends. They are ornamented on all four faces with longitudinal incised lines, colored with red ocher.