Throwing-sticks in the National Museum | Page 2

to distinguish the locality in which each form occurs, as well as to define the associations of the implement as regards the weapon thrown from it and the game pursued. These marks are:
1. Shape, or general outline in face and side view, and size.
2. Handle, the part grasped in the hand.
3. Thumb-groove or thumb-lock, provision for the firm and comfortable insertion of the phalanx and ball of the thumb.
4. Finger-grooves, provision for each finger according to its use in the manipulation of the implement.
5. Finger-pegs, little plugs of wood or ivory to give more certain grip for the fingers and to prevent their slipping. The devices for the fingers are the more necessary where the hands are cold and everything is covered with grease.
6. Finger-tip cavities, excavations on the front face of the implement, into which the tips of the three last fingers descend to assist in grasping and to afford a rest on the back of these fingers for the weapon shaft.
7. Index-finger cavity or hole, provision for the insertion of the index finger, which plays a very important part in the use of the throwing-stick.
8. Spear shaft groove, in which the shaft of the weapon lies, as an arrow or bolt in the groove of a bow-gun.
9. Hook or spur, provision for seizing the butt end of the weapon while it is being launched. These may be ridges left in the wood by excavation, or pieces of wood, bone, ivory, &c., inserted. The size and shape of this part, and the manner of insertion, are also worthy of notice.
10. Edges: this feature is allied to the form and not to the function of the implement.
11. Faces: upper, on which the weapon rests; lower, into which the index finger is inserted.
The figures illustrating this article are drawn to a scale indicated by inch marks in the margin, every dot on the line standing for an inch.
By the presence or absence, by the number or the shape of some of these marks or structural characteristics, the type and locality can be easily detected. The Eskimo have everywhere bows and arrows for land hunting, the former made of several pieces of bone lashed together, or of a piece of driftwood lashed and re-enforced with sinew. The arrows are of endless variety.
It should also be noticed that the kind of game and the season of the year, the shape and size of the spear accompanying the stick, and the bare or gloved hand, are all indicated by language expressed in various parts of this wonderful throwing-stick.
GREENLAND TYPE.
The Greenland throwing-stick is a long, flat trapezoid, slightly ridged along the back (Fig. 2). It has no distinct handle at the wide end, although it will be readily seen that the expanding of this part secures a firm grip. A chamfered groove on one side for the thumb, and a smaller groove on the other side for the index finger, insure the implement against slipping from the hunter's grasp. Marks 5, 6, 7 of the series on page 280 are wanting in the Greenland type. The shaft-groove, in which lies the shaft of the great harpoon, is wide, deep, and rounded at the bottom. There is no hook, as in all the other types, to fit the end of the harpoon shaft, but in its stead are two holes, one in the front end of the shaft-groove, between the thumb-groove and the finger-groove, with an ivory eyelet or grommet for a lining, the other at the distal end of the shaft-groove, in the ivory piece which is ingeniously inserted there to form that extremity. This last-mentioned hole is not cylindrical like the one in front, but is so constructed as to allow the shaft-peg to slide off easily. These holes exactly fit two ivory pegs projecting from the harpoon shaft. When the hunter has taken his throwing-stick in his hand he lays his harpoon shaft upon it so that the pegs will fall in the two little holes of the stick. By a sudden jerk of his hand the harpoon is thrown forward and released, the pegs drawing out of the holes in the stick. At the front end of the throwing-stick a narrow piece of ivory is pegged to prevent splitting. As before intimated, this type of throwing-stick is radically different from all others in its adjustment to the pegs on the heavy harpoon. In all other examples in the world the hook or spur is on the stick and not on the weapon.
UNGAVA TYPE.
One specimen from Fort Chimo in this region, southeast of Hudson Bay, kindly lent by Mr. Lucien Turner, is very interesting, having little relation with that from Greenland (which is so near geographically), and connecting itself with all the other types as far as Kadiak, in Alaska (Fig. 3). The