Page:Eskimo Life.djvu/59

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THE 'KAIAK' AND ITS APPURTENANCES
37

more ingenious appliance, composed of such materials as bone, sealskin, and drift-wood; and we may be sure that it has cost the labour of many generations.

THE HEAD OF THE HARPOON.

Two forms of this harpoon are in use in Greenland. The one is called unâk; its butt-end is finished off with nothing more than a bone knob, and it is longer and slighter than the other. This is called ernangnak, and has at its butt-end two flanges or wings of bone, now commonly made of whale-rib, designed to increase the weight of the harpoon and to guide it through the air. It is one of these which is represented on p. 36.[1]

At Godthaab the ernangnak was most in use; but I heard old hunters complaining that,

  1. In North Greenland there is yet a third and larger form of the harpoon, which is used in walrus hunting, and is hurled without a throwing-stick; it has instead two bone knobs, one for the thumb and one for the forefinger.