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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.
THROWING-STICKS IN THE NATIONAL
MUSEUM.
OTIS T. MASON,
_Curator of the Department of Ethnology_
From the Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-'84,
Part II, pages 279-289, and plates I-XVII
WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.
1890.
I.--THROWING-STICKS IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM.
By Otis T. Mason.
Col. Lane Fox tells us there are three areas of the throwing-stick:
Australia, where it is simply an elongated spindle with a hook at the
end; the country of the Conibos and the Purus, on the Upper Amazon,
where the implement resembles that of the Australians, and the
hyperborean regions of North America.
It is of this last group that we shall now speak, since the National
Museum possesses only two specimens from the first-named area and none
whatever from the second.
The researches and collections of Bessels, Turner, Boas, Hall, Mintzner,
Kennicott, Ray, Murdoch, Nelson, Herendeen, and Dall, to all of whom I
acknowledge my obligations, enable me to compare widely separated
regions of the hyperborean area, and to distinguish these regions by the
details in the structure of the throwing-stick.
The method of holding the throwing-stick is indicated in Fig. 1 by a
drawing of H.W. Elliott. The Eskimo is just in the act of launching the
light seal harpoon. The barbed point will fasten itself into the animal,
detach itself from the ivory foreshaft, and unwind the rawhide or sinew
line, which is securely tied to both ends of the light wooden shaft by a
martingale device. The heavy ivory foreshaft will cause the shaft to
assume an upright position in the water, and the whole will act as a
drag to impede the progress of the game. The same idea of impeding
progress and of retrieving is carried out by a multitude of devices not
necessary to mention here.
The Eskimo spend much time in their skin kyaks, from which it would be
difficult to launch an arrow from a bow, or a harpoon from the unsteady,
cold, and greasy hand. This device of the throwing-stick, therefore, is
the substitute for the bow or the sling, to be used in the kyak, by a
people who cannot procure the proper materials for a heavier
lance-shaft, or at least whose environment is prejudicial to the use of
such a weapon. Just as soon as we pass Mount St. Elias going southward,
the throwing-stick, plus the spear or dart of the Eskimo and the Aleut,
gives place to the harpoon with a long, heavy, cedar shaft, weighing 15
or 20 pounds, whose momentum from both hands of the Indian, without the
throw-stick, exceeds that of the Eskimo and Aleut darts and harpoons,
with the additional velocity imparted by the throwing-stick. It must not
be forgotten, also, that the kyak is a very frail, unsteady thing, and
therefore not much of the momentum of the body can be utilized, as it is
by the Northwest Indians in making a lunge with a heavy shaft. The
throwing-stick is also said by some arctic voyagers to be useful in
giving directness of aim. Perhaps no other savage device comes so near
in this respect to a gun barrel or the groove of a bow-gun. Its greatest
advantages, however, are the firm grip which it gives in handling a
harpoon or dart, and the longer time which it permits the hunter to
apply the force of his arm to the propulsion of his weapon. Having
practiced with a throwing-stick somewhat, I have imagined also that
there was a certain amount of leverage acquired by the particular method
of holding the stick and straightening the arm, as in a toggle joint.
That implement, which seems so simple, and which is usually mentioned
and dismissed in a word, possesses several marks or organs, which help
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: