Part 49
Fig. 423 (No. 89524 [1299] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a rude wooden image of the same animal, 3½ inches long, very broad and flat-bellied. It is smoothly carved and has a fragment of sky-blue glass inlaid to represent the left eye and a bit of iron pyrites for the right. The flukes have been split wholly off and fastened on with a lashing of narrow whalebone passing through a vertical hole in the “small” and round the edge of the flukes. The flukes themselves have been split across and appear to have been doweled together. This shows that the owner attached considerable value to the object, or he would not have taken the trouble to mend it when another could have been so easily whittled out. In the middle of the belly is an oblong cavity, containing something which probably adds greater power to the charm. What this is can not be seen, as a band of sealskin with the hair shaved off has been shrunk on round the hinder half of the body and secured by a seam on the right side. A double turn of sinew braid is knotted round the middle of the body, leaving two ends which are tied together in a loop, showing that this object was meant to be attached somewhere about the person.
To this class also probably belong the skins or pieces of animals worn as amulets, probably with a view of obtaining the powers of the particular animal, as in so many cases in the stories related in Rink’s Tales and Traditions. We frequently saw men wearing at the belt bunches of the claws of the bear or wolverine, or the metacarpal bones of the wolf.[N626] The head or beak of the gull or raven[N627] is also a common personal amulet, and one man wore a small dried flounder.[N628]
[Footnote N626: Parry mentions bones of the wolverine worn as amulets at Fury and Hecla’s Strait (second voyage, p. 497).]
[Footnote N627: Compare the Greenland story told by Rink (Tales, etc., p. 195), when the man who has a gull for his amulet is able to fly home from sea because the gull seeks his prey far out at sea, while the one whose amulet is a raven can not, because this bird seeks his prey landward. Such an amulet as the latter would probably be chosen with a view to making a man a successful deer hunter.]
[Footnote N628: Compare the Greenland story, where a salmon amulet makes a man too slippery to be caught by his pursuers. (Rink Tales, etc., p. 182.)]
We collected a number of these animal amulets to be worn on the person, but only succeeded in learning the special purpose of one of them, No. 89532 [1307], from Utkiavwĭñ, which was said to be intended to give good luck in deer hunting. It is a young unbranched antler of a reindeer, 6 inches long, and apparently separated from the skull at the “bur,” with the “velvet” skin still adhering, though most of the hair is worn off except at the tip. A bit of sinew is tied round the base.
No. 89522 [1573], from Utkiavwĭñ, is an amulet consisting of the last three joints of the foot of a reindeer fawn, with the skin and hoof and about 1½ inches of tendon attached behind, through a hole in the end of which is knotted about 3 inches of seal thong. No. 89525 [1314] from the same village, is a precisely similar charm. No. 89699 [779] from Utkiavwĭñ, is the subfossil incisor tooth of some ruminant with a hole drilled through the root for a string to hang it up by. It was said to be the tooth of the “ug’ru´nû,” a large animal, long extinct. As the natives said, “Here on the land are none, only the bones remain.” No. 89743 [1110], from Utkiavwĭñ, is a molar tooth of the same animal, probably, weathered and old, with a hole freshly drilled through one root and a long piece of sinew braid with the ends knotted together looped into it. There are also in the collection two very old teeth which probably were inclosed in little sacks of skin and worn as amulets.
No. 89698 [1580], from Utkiavwĭñ, is the tusk of a very young walrus, only 2½ inches long, and No. 89452 [1148] from Utkiavwĭñ, is the canine tooth of a polar bear. No. 56547 [656], from the same village, is a similar tooth.[N629]
[Footnote N629: Compare Kumlien, Contributions, p. 45. “Another charm of great value to the mother who has a young babe is the canine tooth of the polar bear. This is used as a kind of clasp to a seal-skin string, which passes round the body and keeps the breasts up. Her milk supply cannot fail while she wears this.” (Cumberland Gulf.)]
The only amulet attached to a weapon, which we collected, is the tern’s bill, already alluded to, placed under the whalebone lashing on the seal-spear, No. 89910 [1694]. Perhaps the idea of this charm is that the spear should plunge down upon the seal with as sure an aim as the tern does upon its prey.[N630]
[Footnote N630: Compare the story in Rink’s Tales and Traditions (p. 445), where the kaiak, which had a piece of sheldrake fastened into the bow for an amulet, went faster than the sheldrake flies.]
A number of amulets of this class are always carried in the whaling-umiak. I have already mentioned the wolf-skulls, stuffed ravens and eagles, fox-tails[N631] and bunches of feathers used for this purpose. Most of these charms are parts of some rapacious animal or bird, but parts of other animals seem to have some virtue on these occasions.
[Footnote N631: Compare Crantz, vol. 1, p. 216. “The boat [for whaling] must have a fox’s head in front, and the harpoon be furnished with an eagle’s beak.” The latter statement is interesting in connection with the tern’s bill on the seal harpoon, from Point Barrow, already referred to.]
For instance, I noticed the axis vertebra of a seal in one whaling-umiak, and we collected a rudely stuffed skin of a godwit (Limosa lapponica baueri), which, we were informed, was “for whales.” This specimen (No. 89526 [1328], Fig. 424, from Utkiavwĭñ) is soiled and ragged, and has a stick thrust through the neck to hold it out. The neck is wrapped around with a narrow strip of whalebone and some coarse thread, part of which serves to lash on a slip of wood, apparently to splice the stick inside. A bit of white man’s string is passed around the body and tied in a loop to hang it up by. This charm is perhaps to keep the boat from capsizing, since Crantz says that the Greenlanders “like to fasten to their kajak a model of it * * * or only a dead sparrow or snipe, or a bit of wood, stone, some feathers or hair, that they may not overset” (vol. 1, p. 216), and perhaps the bone of a marine animal, like the seal, is to protect the crew from drowning should the boat upset, after all.
No. 89529 [1150] from Utkiavwĭñ is a bunch of feathers to be carried in the boat. It consists of nine wing feathers of the golden eagle, four tied in a bunch with a bit of sinew round the quills, four tied up with one end of the short bit of seal thong which serves to tie the whole bundle together, one of which has all the light-colored parts of the feather stained with red ocher, and a single feather shaft carefully wrapped up in a piece of entrail and wound spirally with a piece of sinew braid.
No. 89527-8 [1327] from Utkiavwĭñ is the charm which will secure good success in deerhunting if it is hung up outside of the snow house in which the family is encamped. It consists of two roughly stuffed skins of the black bellied plover (Charadrius squatarola), each with a stick run through the body so that one end supports the neck and the other the tail, and the necks wound with sinew. One has no head. A string of sinew braid is tied around the body of each, so as to leave a free end at the back, to which is fastened a little cross piece of bone, by which it may be secured to a becket. Like the rest of the amulets in the collection this has evidently seen service, being very old, worn, and faded.
The other class of amulets, namely objects which have belonged to or been in contact with certain persons or supernatural beings, or I may add apparently certain localities, is represented by a number of specimens. To the custom of using such things as amulets, we undoubtedly owe the preservation of most of the ancient weapons and other implements, especially those made of wood, bone, or other perishable substances, like the ancient harpoon heads already described, one of which, No. 89544 [1419], is still attached to the belt on which it was worn.
Fig. 425, No. 56668 [308], from Utkiavwĭñ is one of the ancient black jade adzes 5.1 inches, slung with thong and whalebone, making a becket by which it can be hung up. We did not learn the history of this amulet, which at the time of collecting it was supposed to be a net sinker. There would, however, be no reason for using so valuable an object for such a purpose, when a common beach pebble would do just as well, unless it was intended as a charm to insure success in fishing. It may even have been carried as a charm on the person, since we afterwards saw a still more bulky object used for such a purpose.
Such an object seems rather heavy to be carried on the person, but a well known man in Utkiavwĭñ always carried with him when he went sealing a large pear-shaped stone, which must have weighed upwards of two pounds, suspended somewhere about his person. It is not unlikely that this stone acquired its virtue as an amulet from having been a sinker used by some lucky fisherman in former time or in a distant country. Mr. H. W. Henshaw has already referred to the resemblance of this amulet to the plummet-like “medicine stones” of some of our Indians.[N632]
[Footnote N632: American Journal of Archaeology, vol. 1.]
Fig. 426, (No. 89534 [1306] from Utkiavwĭñ) is an amulet for success in whaling. It consists of three little irregular water-worn fragments of amber carefully wrapped in a bit of parchment and inclosed in a little wooden box 1½ inches long, made of two semicylindrical bits of cottonwood, with the flat faces hollowed out and put together and fastened up by three turns of sinew braid round the middle, tied in a loose knot. The box is old and brown from age and handling. We heard of other pieces of amber and earth (“nuna”) worn as amulets, wrapped up in bits of leather and hung on the belt.
No. 89533 [1247], from Utkiavwĭñ, is simply a nearly square pebble, 1.4 inches long, of dark red jasper, slung in a bit of sinew braid so that it can be hung on the belt. Fig. 427 (No. 89525 [1308] from Utkiavwĭñ) is some small object, placed in the center of the grain side of a square bit of white sealskin, the edges of which are folded up around it and tied tightly round with deer sinew, so as to make a little round knob. I collected this amulet, and was particularly informed how it was to be used. If it be fastened on the right shoulder it will insure success in taking ducks with the “bolas.” Fig. 428 (No. 89535 [1244] from Utkiavwĭñ) is an amulet whose history we did not learn. It is a little oblong box 3.3 inches long, carved from a block of cottonwood, with a flat cover tied on with nine turns of sinew braid, and contains twenty-one dried humble-bees, which it was said came from the river Kulugrua. The natives have a great dread, apparently superstitious, of these bees and the large gadflies (Œstens tarandi), one of which I have seen scatter half a dozen people. A man one day caught one of these, and whittled out a little box of wood, in which he shut the insect up and tied it up with a shred of sinew, telling Capt. Herendeen that it was “tuɐñamun,” for “tuɐña.”
A small lump of indurated gravel (No. 56725) [273] was one day brought over from Utkiavwĭñ, with the story that it was a “medicine” for driving away the ice. The man who uses this charm stands on the high bank at the village, and breaking off grains of the gravel throws them seaward. This will cause the ice to move off from the shore.
The essential identity of the amulets of the Point Barrow natives with those used by the Eskimo elsewhere is shown by the following passages from other writers. Egede says:[N633]
A Superstition very common among them is to load themselves with Amulets or Pomanders, dangling about their Necks and Arms, which consist in some Pieces of old Wood, Stones or Bones, Bills and Claws of Birds, or Anything else which their Fancy suggests to them.
[Footnote N633: Greenland, p. 194.]
Crantz says:[N634]
They are so different in the amulets or charms they hang on people, that one laughs at another’s. These powerful preventives consist in a bit of old wood hung around their necks, or a stone, or a bone, or a beak or claw of a bird, or else a leather strap tied round their forehead, breast, or arm.
[Footnote N634: History of Greenland, vol. I, p. 216.]
Parry speaks[N635] of what he supposes were amulets at Iglulik, consisting of teeth of the fox, wolf, and musk-ox, bones of the “kablĕĕarioo” (supposed to be the wolverine), and foxes’ noses. Kumlien says[N636] that at Cumberland Gulf, “among the many superstitious notions, the wearing of charms about the person is one of the most curious. These are called _angoouk_ or _amusit_, and may be nothing but pieces of bone or wood, birds’ bills or claws, or an animal’s teeth or skin.” A little girl “had a small envelope of sealskin that was worn on the back of her inside jacket” containing two small stones.
[Footnote N635: Second voyage, p. 497.]
[Footnote N636: Contributions, p. 45.]
Such little pockets of skin sewed to the inner jacket are very common at Point Barrow, but we did not succeed in any case in learning their contents. At Kotzebue Sound, Beechey saw ravens’ skins on which the natives set a high value, while the beaks and claws of these birds were attached to their belts and headbands.[N637] Petitot describes[N638] the amulets used in the Mackenzie district, in the passage already quoted, as “défroques empaillées de corbeau, de faucon ou d’hermine.” It is not likely that the use of these is confined to the women, as his words, “Elles y portent,” would seem to imply. Among the sedentary Chukches of Siberia amulets were seen consisting of wooden forks and wood or ivory carvings.[N639] A wolf’s skull, hung up by a thong; the skin, together with the whole cartilaginous portion of a wolf’s nose, and a flat stone, are also mentioned.[N640] Capt. Holm also found wonderfully similar customs among the East Greenlanders. He says,[N641] “bære alle Folk Amuletter af de mest forskjelligartede Ting” to guard against sickness and to insure long life, and also for specific purposes. The men wear them slung round the neck or tied round the upper arm, the women in their knot of hair or “i Snippen foran paa Pelsen.”
[Footnote N637: Voyage, p. 333.]
[Footnote N638: Monographie, etc., p. xv.]
[Footnote N639: Nordenskiöld, Vega, vol. 2, p. 126.]
[Footnote N640: Vega, vol. 1, p. 503.]
[Footnote N641: Geografisk Tidskrift, vol. 8, p. 94.]
INDEX.
A.
Adornment by Eskimo 138, 140-149 Adzes of the Eskimo, general description 165-172 ---- of steel or iron 165-166, 168, 171 ---- of jade 166-168, 170 ---- of bone 168-172 Amulets of the Eskimo, how carried 434 ---- whales of glass, wood, and stone 435-436 ---- reindeer antler 436 ---- parts of various animals 437-438, 441 ---- ancient weapons and implements 438, 439 ---- stones 437 ---- of seal skin for catching fowls 439 ---- of dried bees 440 Animals of the Point Barrow region, Alaska 55-59 Apúya. (_See_ Snow-houses of Eskimo.) Arm clothing of Eskimo 123-125 Arrows of the Eskimo 201-207 Art of the Eskimo, incised patterns 389-391 ---- painting 390-392 ---- carving in various materials 392 ---- carvings of human figures 373-398 ---- carvings of quadrupeds 398-401, 406-407 ---- carvings of walrus and seal 401-402 ---- carvings of whales 402-406 ---- carvings of various objects 406-409 ---- pencil drawings 410 Automatons of the Eskimo 372-373 Awls of the Eskimo 181, 182
B.
Bags, for tobacco 68-69 ---- for tools 187-190 Bailer for Eskimo umiak 340, 341 Baird, Spencer F., acknowledgments to 19, 20 Baskets of the Eskimo 326-327 Beads of the Eskimo 149 Bear, Eskimo lance for hunting 240 Bear arrows of the Eskimo 202 Beechey, Frederick W., work consulted 21 ---- description of Eskimo bracer 210 ---- description of Eskimo seal dart 218 ---- cited on Eskimo seal nets 252 ---- description of Eskimo umiak 343 ---- cited on Eskimo superstitions 434 Beggary among Point Barrow Eskimo 42 Belt fasteners of Eskimo 138 Belts of Eskimo 135-138 Bessels, Emil, acknowledgments to 20 ---- description of Eskimo lamp 108 ---- cited on Eskimo bows 199 ---- cited on fire-making by Eskimo 290 ---- cited on Eskimo dog sledges 360 ---- cited on Eskimo abduction 411 ---- cited on infantcide among Eskimo 417 ---- cited on Eskimo children 419 ---- cited on Eskimo mourning 425 Bird-darts of the Eskimo 210-214 Birds of the Point Barrow region, Alaska 56-58 ---- Eskimo bolas for catching 244-246 Blubber-holder for Eskimo lamp 108-109 Blubber hooks for the Eskimo 310-311 Blubber rooms of Point Barrow Eskimo 76 Boas, Franz, acknowledgments to 20 ---- work consulted 21 ---- cited on Eskimo harpoons 221 ---- cited on Eskimo kaiaks 331 ---- cited on Eskimo umiaks 338 ---- cited on Eskimo jackstones 365 ---- cited on Eskimo customs concerning childbirth 415 Bolas of the Eskimo 244-246 Bone-crushers of the Eskimo 93-99 Boots of Eskimo 129-135 Borers of the Eskimo 175-182 Bow and arrow making by the Eskimo 291-294 Bow cases of the Eskimo 207-209 Bowls, for meat, of the Eskimo 89 Bows of the Eskimo 195-200 Boxes of the Eskimo, for tools 185-187 ---- for harpoon heads 247-251 ---- for trinkets 323-326 Bracelets of the Eskimo 148-149 Bracers for Eskimo bows 209-210 Braiding and twisting, Eskimo implements for 311-312 Breeches of Eskimo 125-129 Buckets of the Eskimo 86-88 Builders’ tools of the Eskimo 302-304 Burials, Eskimo, manner of preparing the corpse 424 ---- implements of the deceased buried with him 424, 426 ---- protection of corpse from animals 425 ---- disposal of the corpse 425-426 ---- mourning for the dead 425 ---- cremation of the dead 426 ---- dog’s head placed near child’s grave 426
C.