SKIN-WORKING.

Scrapers (ikun).—

For removing bits of flesh, fat, etc., from a “green” skin, and for “breaking the grain” and removing the subcutaneous tissue from a dried skin, the women, who appear to do most if not all of this work, use a tool consisting of a blunt stone blade, mounted in a short, thick haft of wood or ivory, fitting exactly to the inside of the hand and having holes or hollows to receive the tips of the fingers and thumb. The skin is laid upon the thigh and thoroughly scraped with this tool, which is grasped firmly in the right hand and pushed from the worker. This tool is also used for softening up skins which have become stiffened from being wet and then dried. The teeth appear to be less often used for such purposes than among the eastern Eskimo.

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No. 89320 [1171] from Utkiavwĭñ, without a blade, is of the same general pattern, but is slightly excavated on the left as well as the right side so as to make a sort of shank. It is of fossil ivory, stained a dingy orange from age and grease. The two incised circles and dots on the upper surface close to the slot make the end of the handle look like the head of a Lophius, which it is perhaps meant to represent. No. 89321 (858), an old fossil ivory handle, has the left side slightly hollowed to receive the tip of the thumb, and a median keel on the upper surface with a barely perceptible hollow on each side of it for the tips of the fingers. This is a step toward the second subtype as shown in Fig. 290 (No. 89317 [748] from Utkiavwĭñ, which has no blade). This is of fossil ivory, thicker and more strongly arched than the type described, deeply excavated below so as to form a broad lobe at the butt, with the upper surface deeply grooved to receive the tips of the fore and middle fingers, and a slight hollow on the left side for the thumb. This specimen is very neatly made and polished, and all the edges are rounded off. One-half of the handle (lengthwise) and the outer quarter of the other half are stained with age and grease a beautiful amber brown. This specimen was said to be as old as the time when men wore but one labret.

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The last subtype which, according to my recollection, is the one most frequently seen in use at the present day, has the butt produced horizontally into a broad, flat lobe. The excavation of the right side may be continued through to the left in the form of a notch, as shown in Fig. 294 (No. 89315 [1365] from Sidaru) which has a blade of black flint and a handle of fossil ivory, with hollows for the thumb and fingers; or the left side may be unexcavated except for the thumb groove as in Fig. 295 (No. 89309 [1135] from Utkiavwĭñ). This specimen has a rather large wooden handle, with the grooves as before. It appears, however, to have been remodeled to fit a smaller hand than that of the original owner, as the thumb groove has been deepened for about two-thirds of its original length, and there is a deep, round hole in the middle of the groove for the second finger. The peculiarity of this specimen, however, is that it has a blade of sandstone, flat and rather thin, with a smooth, rounded edge. The natives told us that scraper blades of sandstone were the prevailing form in old times.

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Fig. 296 (No. 89312 [1336] from Utkiavwĭñ) is another wooden handle, in which the excavation for the third and fourth fingers is merely a large round hole on the right side, while in front the handle is cut into two short lobes, between which in a deep groove the forefinger fits. There is a hollow for the thumb under the left lobe and one on the right for the middle finger. No. 89311 [1079] from the same village is almost exactly similar. These are the only two specimens of the kind which I recollect seeing. A rather large flint-bladed scraper with a wooden handle very much the shape of that of No. 89309 [1135] is the tool most generally used at the present day. The blades are all of the same general shape and vary in size from the little one above mentioned (No. 89322 [1426], Fig. 291a), only 0.4 inch long, to blades like No. 89612 [820], Fig. 297, from Utkiavwĭñ. This is newly made from light gray translucent flint and is 5 inches long. The name kibûgû, applied to this specimen by the native from whom it was purchased, appears to refer either to the material or the unusual size. The blade is ordinarily called kuki, “a claw.” With the ivory handles a blade about 1 or 1½ inches is commonly used and with the wooden ones a considerably larger one, 2 to 3 inches in length. The handles vary in size to fit the hands of the owners, but are all too small for an average white man’s hand. All that we collected are for the right hand.

The Siberian natives use an entirely different form of scraper which has a long handle like that of a spoke-shave with a small blade of stone or iron in the middle and is worked with both hands.411 Fig. 299 (No. 89488 [1578] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a tool which we never saw in use but which we were told was intended for scraping skins. It is probably an obsolete tool, as a knife would better serve the purpose of removing the subcutaneous tissue, etc., while the stone scrapers just described are better for softening the skin.

It is the distal end of the “cannon” bone or metacarpal, of a reindeer, 6.2 inches long, with the two condyles forming the handle. At the other end the posterior face of the shaft is chamfered off so as to expose the medullary cavity for about 2½ inches, leaving a sharp edge on each side. The tip is roughly broken off. The tool appears to be old but the two condyles have been recently carved rudely into two human faces, one male (with marks for labrets) and the other female. There is a somewhat similar tool in the Museum brought by Mr. Nelson from Norton Sound.

Scraper cups (óhovwĭñ).—

In removing the last of the blubber from the skins of seals or walruses when they wish to save the oil, they scrape it off with a little oblong cup of walrus ivory with a sharp edge at one or both ends. The cup, of course, catches the oil which is transferred to a dish. These cups are sometimes, I believe, also used for dipping oil. We collected ten of these cups, of which No. 89251 [1287], Fig. 300a, will serve as the type. This is 3.7 inches long, carved out of a single piece of walrus ivory, and worked down from the inside to a sharp edge on each end. The carving is smoothly done on the outside, but more roughly within, where it is somewhat hacked. It is stained a dark yellow with oil and polished on the outside, probably by much handling. Fig. 300b (No. 89258 [1090] also from Utkiavwĭñ) is a similar cup, but has a sharp edge only at one end which is cut out in a concave curve.

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With these tools and their knives, they do all the work of preparing skins for clothing, boat covers, etc. I had no opportunity of seeing the process in all its stages, and can therefore give only a general account of it. Deerskins are always dressed as furs, with the hair on. The skin is rough-dried in the open air, with considerable subcutaneous tissue adhering to it, and laid aside until needed. When wanted for use, a woman takes the skin and works it over carefully with a stone scraper on the flesh side, removing every scrap of subcutaneous tissue and “breaking the grain” of the skin, which leaves a surface resembling white chamois leather and very soft. This is then rubbed down with a flat piece of sandstone or gypsum, and finally with chalk, so that when finished it seems like pipeclayed leather. All furs are prepared in the same way. Small seal skins to be worn with the hair on are scraped very clean and, I think, soaked in urine, before they are spread out to dry. The black waterproof seal skin has the hair shaved off close to the skin, great care being taken to leave the epidermis intact, and also has a certain amount of tanning in urine. It is probable that a little of the blubber is left on these skins, to make them oily and waterproof.

When, however they wish to prepare the white-tanned seal skin, the skins are brought into the warm house, thawed out or dampened and then rolled up and allowed to ferment for several days, so that when they are unrolled hair and epidermis are easily scraped off together. The skin is then soaked in urine, stretched on a large hoop, and put out to dry in the sun and air. Many of these skins are prepared during the first sunny weather in the early spring. The skins of the large seal, walrus or bear when used for boat-covers or boot soles appear to be sweated in the same way, as the epidermis is always removed. We did not learn whether urine was employed on these skins, but I think from their ordinary appearance that they are simply stretched and dried in their own fat, as appears to be the case with the skin of the beluga, from which the epidermis is easily scraped without sweating.412

Combs for deerskins.—

The loosened hairs on a deerskin garment are removed by means of a comb made of a section of the beam of an antler, hollowed out and cut into teeth on the end. This instrument probably serves also to remove vermin, as its name “kúmotĭn” looks very much as if derived from kúmûk, louse. I must say, however, that the natives whom I asked if kúmotĭn had anything to do with kúmûk said it had not. When vermin get troublesome in a garment, it is taken out on the tundra, away from the houses, and beaten with rods like a carpet. Very old garments when much infested with lice are taken out back of the village, cut into small pieces, and burned. It is no uncommon sight in the spring to see an old woman sitting out on the tundra, busy with her knife cutting up old clothes.

We brought home nine of these combs, of which No. 89354 [1879], Fig. 301a, has been selected as the type. It is 4¼ inches long and has sixteen teeth about 1 inch long. The small holes near the other end are for a lanyard to hang it up by.

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MANUFACTURE OF LINES OF THONG.

No tools are used for this purpose except a knife. I have seen a small jackknife used for cutting the fine seal skin lines. The workman takes a wet skin from which the hair and epidermis have been removed and sits down cross-legged on the ground with somebody else to hold the skin stretched for him. Then holding the knife vertically up with the edge away from him, he starts at one corner of the skin and cuts a narrow strip in one continuous piece, going round and round the skin, gathering and stretching the strip with the left hand. They do this work quite rapidly and with great skill, cutting single lines upward of 90 feet long and only one-eighth inch in diameter, almost perfectly even. These fine lines of seal-skin thong, which serve a great variety of purposes, are usually made when they are in the summer camps, before the breaking up of the ice. They are dried by stretching them between stakes 6 inches or a foot high, driven into the ground.

The stout thongs of the hide of the bearded seal, walrus, or beluga are usually made in the winter and stretched to dry between posts of whales’ bones set up in the village, about breast high. While they are drying, the maker carefully trims and scrapes the edges with his knife, so as to make an almost round line.413 The usual diameter is about 0.3 inch. These lines are not always made with such care, being often merely flat thongs. Fine deer-skin twine, or “babiche,” as it is called by the voyageurs, for making the nettings of snow shoes, is made in the same way. A deer skin is dampened, rolled up, and put up over the lamp for a day or two to remove the hair by sweating, and then cut into a single long piece of fine thong.

All the men do not appear able to do this fine work. For instance, our friend Mû´ñialu had the babiche for his new snowshoes made by his house-mate, the younger Tuñazu. When it is desired to fasten together two pieces of the stouter kinds of thong, what I have so often referred to as the “double-slit splice” is generally employed. This is made as follows: The two ends to be joined together are each slit lengthwise, and one is passed through the slit in the other. The other end of this piece is then passed through the slit in the first piece, and drawn through so that the sides of each slit interlace like the loops of a square knot (see diagrams, Fig. 302). The splice is often further secured by a seizing of sinew braid. Most writers on the Eskimo have not gone sufficiently into the details of their arts to describe their methods of splicing. One writer,414 however, in describing some Eskimo implements from East Greenland, describes and figures several splices somewhat of this nature, and one in particular especially complicated by crossing the sides of the slits and passing the end through several times. This method of uniting thongs is probably very general among the Eskimo and is also common enough among civilized people.

BUILDERS’ TOOLS.

For excavating.—

At the present day they are very glad to use white men’s picks and shovels when they want to dig in the gravel or clean out the ice from their houses. They, however, have mattocks and pickaxes (síkla) of their own manufacture, which are still in use. These are always single-pointed and have a bone or ivory head, mounted like an adz head on a rather short haft. The haft, like those of the mauls and adzes already described, is never fitted into the head, but always applied to the under surface of the latter and held on by a lashing of thong.

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The only complete implement of the kind which we obtained is No. 73574 [297], Fig. 303. The head is of whale’s rib, 17¾ inches long. The butt is shouldered on the under surface to receive the haft and roughened with crosscuts to prevent slipping, with two shallow rough transverse notches on the upper surface for the lashings. The haft is of pine, 24½ inches long. The lashing is of stout thong of bearded seal hide, in two pieces, one of four turns passing through the hole, round the front edge of the haft, over the lower notch in the head, and back across the haft to the hole again. The ends are knotted together on top of the head by becket-hitching one end into an eye in the other, made by slitting it close to the tip and passing a bight of the standing part through this slit. The other part is of seven turns, put on in the same way, but crossing back of the haft, and started by looping one end round the head and through the eye by means of an eye at the end made as before. It is finished off by winding the end three or four times round these turns, so as to tighten them up, and hitching it round two of them on one side. This method of hafting differs in no essential respect from that used on the mauls and adzes above described.

We have also two heads for such mattocks, which hardly differ from the one described, except the No. 56494 [285] has the notches for the lashings on the side of the head instead of on the upper surface. It is 16 inches long. The other, No. 89843 [1043], Fig. 304a, is a very rude head made of an almost cylindrical piece of rib. This is a very old tool, which from its oily condition has evidently been long laid away in some blubber room at Utkiavwĭñ. It is 15.2 inches long.

These blunt-pointed mattocks are not so much used at present as picks with a sharp point mounted in the same way, and specially adapted for working in ice or hard frozen soil. I have, however, never seen them used for cutting holes in the ice for fishing, which some authors have supposed to be what they were meant for. Their shape makes them very inconvenient for any such a purpose, except when the ice is very thin.

The ice pick, like those carried on the butt of the spear, is under any circumstances a more serviceable tool. These sharp pickax heads are generally made of a walrus tusk, the natural shape of which requires very little alteration to fit it for the purpose. We collected three of these ivory heads, all very nearly alike, of which No. 56539b [96], Fig. 304b, will serve as the type. This is the tip of a good-sized walrus tusk, 14.2 inches long, preserving very nearly the natural outline of the tusk except at the point, where it is rounded off rather more abruptly above. It is keeled along the upper edge and on the lower edge at the point, so that the latter is four-sided, and the sides of the butt are flattened. On the under side the butt is cut off flat for about 3½ inches, leaving a low flange or ridge, and roughened with crosscuts to fit the end of the haft, and the butt is perforated with two large transverse eyes for the lashing. The other two heads are almost exactly like this and very nearly the same size.

Sharp-pointed pick heads of whale’s bone appear also to have been used, probably at an earlier date than the neatly finished ivory ones, as we collected three such heads, all very old and roughly made, and having notches or grooves for the lashings instead of eyes. Fig. 304c is one of these, No. 89844 [1315], from Utkiavwĭñ, very rudely cut from a piece of whale’s rib, 12 inches long.

I do not recollect seeing any of these bone-headed picks in use, while the ivory-headed one was one of the commonest tools. This Eskimo tool is in use at Pitlekaj, a village supposed to be wholly inhabited by sedentary Chukches.415

TOOLS FOR SNOW AND ICE WORKING.

Snow knives.—

For cutting the blocks of snow used in building the apu´ya, or snow hut, they at the present day prefer a saw or a large steel knife (for instance, a whaleman’s boarding knife), if they can procure it, but they still have many of the large saber-shaped ivory knives so commonly used by the Eskimo everywhere for this purpose. These are, however, more generally used for scraping snow off their clothing, etc., at present. We brought home two of these knives, which do not differ in any important respect from the many specimens collected by other explorers in Alaska.

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Snow shovels.—

The broad, short-handled snow shovel of wood with a sharp edge of ivory is the tool universally employed whenever snow is to be shoveled, either to clear it away or for excavating houses or pitfalls in the snowdrifts, or “chinking” up the crevices in the walls of the snow house, and is an indispensable part of the traveler’s outfit in winter. The shovels (pĭ´ksun) are all made on essentially the same pattern, which is well shown by Fig. 306a, No. 56739 [30]. The blade is 14 inches broad and 11 long. The whole upper surface of the shovel is flat. The handle is beveled off on the side to a rounded edge below, and is quite thick where it joins the blade, tapering off to the tip. The blade is thick and abruptly rounded off on the upper edge below and gradually thinned down to the edge. The edge of the wood is fitted with a tongue into a groove in the top of the ivory edge, which is 1½ inches deep. It is fastened on by wooden tree-nails at irregular intervals, and at one end, where the edge of the groove has been broken, by a stitch of black whalebone. The wooden part of the shovel is made of four unequal pieces of spruce, neatly fitted and doweled together and held by the ivory edge and three stitches of black whalebone close to the upper edge, and countersunk below the flat surface. The whippings of sinew braid on the handle are to give a firm grip for the hands.

No. 56738 [27], Fig. 306b, is a similar shovel of the same material and almost exactly the same dimensions, figured to show the way it has been pieced together and mended. The maker of this shovel was able to procure a broad piece of wood which only had to be pieced out with a narrow strip on the left side, which is fastened on as before. It was, however, not long enough to make the whole of the handle, which has a piece 8½ inches long, neatly scarfed on at the end and secured by six stout treenails of wood; three at each end of the joint, passing through the thin part of the scarf into the thick, but not through the latter. Nearly the whole handle was seized with sinew braid put on as before, but much of this seizing is broken off. At the right side of the blade the grain takes a twist, bringing it parallel to the ivory edge, and rendering it liable to split, as has happened from the warping of the ivory since the shovel has been in the Museum. The owner sought to prevent this by fastening to the edge a stout “strap” of walrus ivory 4½ inches, which appears to be an old bird spear point. The lower end of this fitted into the groove of the ivory edge, and it was held on by three equidistant lashings of narrow whalebone, each running through a hole in the edge of the wood and round the ivory in a deep transverse groove.

This pattern of snow shovel is very like that from Iglulik, figured by Capt. Lyon,416 but the handle of the latter is so much shorter in proportion to the blade that there is an additional handle like that of a pot lid near the head of the blade on the upper surface. The ivory edge also appears to be fastened on wholly with stitches.

Fig. 307 (No. 89775 [1250] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a peculiar implement, the only one of the kind that we saw. It is a shovel, 17 inches long, made of a whale’s scapula, with the anterior and posterior borders cut off straight so as to make it 13¼ inches broad, and the superior margin beveled off to an edge. The handle is made by flattening the neck of the scapula and cutting through it a large horizontal elliptical slot, below which the end of the scapula is worked into a rounded bar 1 inch in diameter. The cutting around this slot appears new, and red ocher has been rubbed into the crevices. On the other hand, the beveling of the digging edge appeared to be old. Though colored with red ocher, the edge is gapped as if from use, and there are fragments of tundra moss sticking to it. It is probably an old implement “touched up” for sale. We did not learn whether such tools were now generally used. This may have been a makeshift or an individual fancy.

Ice picks.—

The ivory ice pick (tu´u) always attached to the seal-harpoon has been already described. This differs from the tôk of the Greenlanders and other eastern Eskimo in having a sharp bayonet point, while the latter is often chisel-pointed. All the men now have iron ice picks which they use for cutting the holes for fishing, setting seal nets, and such purposes. These are made of some white man’s tool which has a socket, like a harpoon iron, a whale lance, a boarding knife or bayonet, and usually have a rather slender blade about a foot long, mounted on a pole 6 or 8 feet long. The point is sharp and polygonal, generally four-sided. The tool is managed with both hands and used to split off fragments of ice by rather oblique blows. In other words, it is used in precisely the same way as the little single-handed pick which we use in refrigerators. For chiseling off projecting corners of ice when making a path out through the ice pack, they often use whale spades, of which they have obtained a great many from wrecks.

No. 89483 [1313] from Utkiavwĭñ, is a very old pick made of a piece of reindeer antler, 11¼ inches long, split lengthwise, and tapered to a sharp curved point. The butt is cut into a sort of tang with a low shoulder. The split face is concave, the soft interior tissue having been removed by decay and perhaps also intentionally. Another peculiar tool is shown in Fig. 309 (No. 89479 [1064] from Utkiavwĭñ). This was called kăkaiyaxion, and is a rounded piece of antler 10.4 inches long, tapering from the butt where there is a low shoulder and the broken remains of a rounded tang to be fitted to a shaft. One side is cut off flat from the shoulder to the tip, gradually becoming concave. The concavity is deepest near the middle. The tip is slightly expanded, rounded, and somewhat bent toward the convex side. The specimen is smoothly and neatly made and dark brown from age. No other specimens were seen. We were told that this tool was mounted on a long pole and used for drilling holes in the ice by making the pole revolve with the hands.

Ice scoops.—

When picking a hole through the ice they use a long-handled scoop, made of a piece of antler bent round into a hoop, and netted across the bottom with strips of whalebone, so that the water may drain off in dipping pieces of ice out of the water. We brought home one specimen of this universal implement (No. 89903 [1696], Fig. 310). The handle is of oak, 5 feet 1¾ inches long and elliptical in section. The rim of the bowl is a long thin strip of antler, apparently from the “palm,” bent round into a pointed oval, 8½ inches long and 5¾ wide, with the ends of the strip overlapping about 3 inches at the broader end. The ends are sewed together with two vertical stitches of whalebone. The left end has been broken across obliquely near the joint and mended with whalebone stitches. Round the lower edge of the rim runs a row of twenty-seven pairs of small holes 0.2 inch from the edge. The holes of each pair are connected by a deep channel, and a narrow shallow groove, probably for ornament, joins the pairs. On the left side are eight extra holes between the pairs, which are not used. Through these holes, omitting the first two pairs in the right-hand end, is laced a piece of seal thong, thus: Starting at the point of the oval, the two ends of the thong are passed through the pair of holes there from the outside and the bight drawn home into the channel; the ends are crossed, the left end going to the right, and vice versa, and passed out through the farther hole of the next pair and in through the nearer, and so on till the ends meet at the broad end of the oval where they are tied together, thus making twenty-five loops on the inside of the rim into which the netting is fastened. This is made of strips of thin whalebone, interwoven, over and under each other, passing up through one loop and down through the next. There are eleven longitudinal strands passing obliquely from right to left, the same number from left to right, and eleven transverse strands, making a network with elongated hexagonal apertures. The strips are not one continuous piece. The bowl thus made is fastened to the handle by three pieces of stout seal thong. The whole lashing was put on wet, and allowed to shrink.

Nordenskiöld mentions and figures a scoop of almost identically the same pattern, but smaller, in general use for the same purposes at Pitlekaj.417 A smaller scoop or skimmer (ĕlauatĭn) is also universally used. We inadvertently neglected to preserve a specimen of this very common implement, though we had two or three about the station for our own use. I shall therefore have to describe it from memory. The handle is a flat, straight stick with rounded edges, about 18 inches or 2 feet long, 1½ inches broad, and three-fourths inch thick. The bowl is made of two pieces of antler “palm” of such a shape that when they are fastened together on the end of the stick they make a shallow cup about 3½ inches long by 3 wide, with a longitudinal crevice along the middle which allows the water to drain off. The tip of the handle is beveled off on both sides so as to fit into the inside of this cup, along the junction of the two pieces, each of which is fastened to it by one or two neat stitches of whalebone. The two pieces are fastened together in front of the handle with a stitch.

In addition to the use of these scoops for skimming the fishing holes, and reeling up the line, as already described, they also serve as scrapers to remove snow and hoar frost from the clothing. In the winter most of the men and boys, especially the latter, carry these skimmers whenever they go out doors, partly for the sake of having something in their hands, as we carry sticks, and partly for use. The boys are very fond of using them to pick up and sling snowballs, bits of ice, or frozen dirt, which they do with considerable force and accuracy.

IMPLEMENTS FOR PROCURING AND PREPARING FOOD.

Blubberhooks (nĭ´ksĭgû).—

For catching hold of pieces of blubber or flesh when “cutting in” a whale or walrus, or dragging them round on shore or on the ice, or in the blubber rooms, they use hooks made by fastening a backward-pointing prong of ivory on the end of a wooden handle, which is bent into a crook at the other end. Those specially intended for use in the boats have handles 7 or 8 feet long, while those for shore use are only 2 or 3 feet long. These implements, which are common all along the Alaskan coast, may sometimes be used as boathooks, as appears to be the case farther south, though I never saw them so employed. We brought home two short hooks and one long one, No. 56766 [126], Fig. 311. This has a prong of walrus ivory fastened to a spruce pole, 7 feet 7¾ inches long, to the other end of which is fastened a short crook of antler. The pole is elliptical in section. The crook is a nearly straight “branch” of an antler with a transverse arm at the base made by cutting out a piece of the “beam” to fit against the pole, and is held on by three neat lashings of whalebone of the usual pattern. The upper two of these are transverse lashings passing through corresponding holes in the pole and crook. The lowest, which is at the tip of the arm, is at right angles to these, passing through wood and antler. The lashing of whalebone close to the tip of the crook, passing through a hole and round the under side of the latter, is to keep the hand from slipping off. The prong is held on by two lashings of small seal thong, each passing through a large transverse hole in the prong and a corresponding one in the pole. The upper pair of holes do not exactly match. There are also two unused holes, one in the pole below the upper hole and one above the upper hole in the prong. These holes and the new appearance of the lashings indicate that the prong is part of another hook recently fitted to this pole. The two lashings are made by a single piece of thong. The whole is old and weathered and rather greasy about the prong and the tip of the pole.