_Pots of stone and other materials (u´tkuzĭñ)._--In former times, pots
of soapstone resembling those employed by the eastern Eskimo, and
probably obtained from the same region as the lamps, were used for
cooking food at Point Barrow, but the natives have so long been able
to procure metal kettles directly or indirectly from the whites (Elson
found copper kettles at Point Barrow in 1826)[N179] that the former
have gone wholly out of use, and at the present day fragments only are
to be found. There are four such fragments in the collection, of which
three are of the same model and one quite different.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Stone pot. 1/4]
No. 89885-6 [1559] (Fig. 20) is sufficiently whole to show the pattern
of the first type. It is of soft gray soapstone. A large angular gap
is broken from the middle of one side, taking out about half of this
side, and a small angular piece from the bottom. From the corner of
this gap the pot has been broken obliquely across the bottom, and
mended in three places with stitches of whalebone made as described
under No. 89865 [1321]. One end is cut down for about half its height,
and the edge carried round in a straight line till it meets the gap in
the broken side. This end appears to have been pieced with a fresh
piece of stone, as there are holes for stitches in the edge of the
whole side and in the upper edge of the broken side. There are also
two “stitch holes” at the other side of the gap, showing how it was
originally mended. A low transverse ridge across the middle of the
whole end was probably an ornament. Holes for strings by which the pot
was hung up are bored one-fourth to one-half inch from the brim. Two
of these are bored obliquely through the corners, which are now broken
off. The holes in the sides close to the corners were probably made to
take the place of these. The pot is neatly and smoothly made, and the
brim is slightly rounded. It shows signs of great age, and is
blackened with soot and crusted with oil and dirt.[N180]
[Footnote N179: Beechey’s Voyage, p. 572.]
[Footnote N180: This specimen was broken in transportation, and
the pieces received different Museum numbers. It is now mended
with glue.]
Nos. 89886 [680] and 89868 [1096] are much less complete. They are the
broken ends of pots slightly smaller than the above, but of precisely
the same pattern, even to the ornamental transverse ridge across the
end.[N181] The string holes are bored through the corners as before,
and in both pots are holes showing where they have been mended by
whalebone stitches, fragments of which are still sticking in one pot.
This method of mending soapstone vessels by sewing is mentioned by
Capt. Parry as practiced at Iglulik.[N182]
[Footnote N181: Compare these pots with the two figured in Parry’s
2d Voyage (plate opposite p. 160). The smaller of these has a
ridge only on the end, but on the larger the ridge runs all the
way round. The plate also shows how the pots were hung up. See
also Fig. 1, plate opposite p. 548.]
[Footnote N182: 2d Voyage, p. 502.]
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Small stone pot. 1/4]
No. 89883 [1097] (Fig. 21) is a small pot of a quite different shape,
best understood from the figure. Round the edge are eight holes for
strings nearly equidistant. The outside is rough, especially on the
bottom. One of the sides is much gapped, and the acute tip has been
broken off obliquely and mended with a stitch of whalebone. The care
used in mending these vessels shows that they were valuable and not
easily replaced. I can find no previous mention of the use of stone
vessels for cooking on the western coast, and there are no specimens
in the National Museum collections. The only Eskimo stone vessels are
a couple of small stone bowls from Bristol Bay. These are very much
the shape of the wooden bowls above described, and appear to have been
used as oil dishes and not for cooking, as the inside is crusted with
grease, while the outside is not blackened. On the other hand, stone
cooking pots are very generally employed even now by the eastern
Eskimos, and have been frequently described.[N183] The close
resemblance of the pots from Point Barrow to those described by Capt.
Parry, taken in connection with Dr. Simpson’s statement[N184] that the
stone lamps were brought from the east, renders it very probable that
the kettles were obtained in the same way. The absence of this utensil
among the southern Eskimo of Alaska is probably due to the fact that
being inhabitants of a well wooded district they would have no need of
contrivances for cooking over a lamp.
[Footnote N183: I need only refer to Crantz, who describes the
“bastard-marble kettle,” hanging “by four strings fastened to the
roof, which kettle is a foot long and half a foot broad, and
shaped like a longish box” (vol. 1, p. 140); the passage from
Parry’s 2d Voyage, referred to above; Kumlien, op. cit., p. 20
(Cumberland Gulf); Boas, “Central Eskimo,” p. 545; and Gilder,
Schwatka’s Search, p. 260 (West Shore of Hudson Bay).]
[Footnote N184: Op. cit., pp. 267-269.]
I obtained three fragments of pottery, which had every appearance of
great age and were said to be pieces of a kind of cooking-pot which
they used to make “long ago, when there were no iron kettles.” The
material was said to be earth (nu´na), bear’s blood, and
feathers,[N185] and appears to have been baked. They are irregular
fragments (No. 89697 [1589], Fig. 22) of perhaps more than one vessel,
which appears to have been tall and cylindrical, perhaps shaped like a
bean-pot, pretty smooth inside, and coated with dried oil or blood,
black from age. The outside is rather rough, and marked with faint
rounded transverse ridges, as if a large cord had been wound round the
vessel while still soft. The largest shard has been broken obliquely
across and mended with two stitches of sinew, and all are very old and
black.
[Footnote N185: Compare the cement for joining pieces of soapstone
vessels mentioned by Boas (“Central Eskimo,” p. 526) consisting of
“seal’s blood, a kind of clay, and dog’s hair.”]
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--Fragments of pottery.]
Beechey (Voyage, p. 295) speaks of “earthen jars for cooking” at
Hotham Inlet in 1826 and 1827, and Mr. E. W. Nelson has collected a
few jars from the Norton Sound region, very like what those used at
Point Barrow must have been. Choris figures a similar vessel in his
Voyage Pittoresque, Pl. III (2d), Fig. 2, from Kotzebue Sound. Metal
kettles of various sorts are now exclusively used for cooking, and are
called by the same name as the old soapstone vessels, which it will be
observed corresponds to the name used by the eastern Eskimo. Light
sheet-iron camp-kettles are eagerly purchased and they are very glad
to get any kind of small tin cans, such as preserved meat tins, which
they use for holding water, etc., and sometimes fit with bails of
string or wire, so as to use them for cooking porridge, etc., over the
lamp. They had learned the value of these as early as Maguire’s
time,[N186] as had the people of Plover Bay in 1849.[N187]
[Footnote N186: See Further Papers, etc., p. 909.]
[Footnote N187: Hooper, Tents, etc., p. 57.]
_Bone crushers._--In preparing food it is often desirable to break the
large bones of the meat, both to obtain the marrow and to facilitate
the trying out of the fat for making the pemmican already described.
Deer bones are crushed into a sort of coarse bone-meal for feeding the
dogs when traveling. For this purpose heavy short-handled stone mauls
are used. These tools may have been formerly serviceable as hammers
for driving treenails, etc., as the first specimen obtained was
described as “savik-pidjûk-nunamisinĭ´ktuɐ-kau´teɐ” (literally
“iron-not-dead-hammer”), or the hammer used by those now dead, who had
no iron. For this purpose, however, they are wholly superseded by iron
hammers, and are now only used for bone crushers. The collection
contains a large series of these implements, namely, 13 complete mauls
and 13 unhafted heads. All are constructed on the same general plan,
consisting of an oblong roughly cylindrical mass of stone, with flat
ends, mounted on the expanded end of a short haft, which is applied to
the middle of one side of the cylinder and is slightly curved, like
the handle of an adz. Such a haft is frequently made of the “branch”
of a reindeer antler, and the expanded end is made by cutting off a
portion of the “beam” where the branch joins it. A haft so made is
naturally elliptical and slightly curved at right angles to the longer
diameter of the ellipse, and is applied to the head so that the
greatest thickness and therefore the greatest strength comes in the
line of the blow, as in a civilized ax or hammer. The head and haft
are held together by a lashing of thong or three-ply braid of sinew,
passing through a large hole in the large end of the haft and round
the head. This lashing is put on wet and dries hard and tight.[N188]
It follows the same general plan in all the specimens, though no two
are exactly alike. The material of the heads, with three exceptions
(No. 56631 [222], gray porphyry; No. 89654 [906], black quartzite, and
No. 89655 [1241], coarse-grained gray syenite), is massive pectolite
(see above, p. 60), generally of a pale greenish or bluish gray color
and slightly translucent, sometimes dark and opaque. No. 56635 [243]
will serve as the type of these implements.[N189]
[Footnote N188: We saw this done on No. 56634 [83], the head and
haft of which were brought in separate and put together by an
Eskimo at the station.]
[Footnote N189: Figured in Ray’s Point Barrow Report, Ethnology,
Pl. II, Fig. 6.]
The head is of light bluish gray pectolite, and is lashed with a
three-ply braid of reindeer sinew to a haft of some soft coniferous
wood, probably spruce, rather smoothly whittled out and soiled by
handling. The transverse ridge on the under side of the butt is to
keep the hand from slipping off the grip. The whole is dirty and shows
signs of considerable age.
These mauls vary considerable in size. The largest is 7.1 inches long
and 2.5 in diameter, and the smallest 2.1 inches long by 2.4. This is
a very small hammer, No. 56634 [83] having a haft only 4.7 inches
long. The haft is usually about 5 inches long. The longest (belonging
to one of the smaller heads, 4 inches by 2) is 7.2 inches long, and
the shortest (belonging to a slightly larger head, 4.7 by 3.1 inches)
is 4.5 inches. The largest two heads, each 7.1 by 2.5 inches, have
hafts 5 inches long.
[Illustration: FIG. 23.--Stone maul. 3/8]
The lashing of all is put on in the same general way, namely, by
securing one end round the head and through the eye, then taking a
variable number of turns round the head and through the hole, and
tightening these up by wrapping the end spirally round all the parts,
where they stretch from head to haft on each side. Seal thong, narrow
or broad, is more generally used than sinew braid (only three
specimens out of the thirteen have lashings of sinew). When broad
thong is used the loop is made by splicing, as follows: A slit is cut
about 1½ inches from the end of the thong, and the end is doubled in a
bight and passed through this slit. The end is then slit and the other
end of the thong passed through it and drawn taut, making a splice
which holds all the tighter for drawing on it. A simple loop is tied
in sinew braid.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.--Stone maul. 3/8]
The following figures will illustrate the most important variations in
the form of this implement. Fig. 23, No. 56634 [83] from Utkiavwĭñ,
has a head of light gray pectolite, slightly translucent, and
evidently ground flat on the faces, and the haft is of reindeer
antler, with a slight knob at the butt. A square piece of buckskin is
doubled and inserted between the head and haft. The lashing is of fine
sealskin twine, and the spiral wrapping is carried wholly round the
head. This was the first stone maul collected, and was put together at
the station, as mentioned above. It is rather smaller than usual. Fig.
24, No. 56637 [196], from Utkiavwĭñ, has the head of grayish
pectolite, rough and unusually large. The haft is of some soft
coniferous wood soaked with grease. It is nearly round, instead of
elliptical, with an irregular knob at the butt, and not curved, but
fastened obliquely to the head. The loop of double thong attached to
the haft is probably to go round the wrist.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--Stone maul. 3/8]
Fig. 25, No. 56639 [161], from Utkiavwĭñ, is of pectolite, the upper
and lower faces almost black and the sides light gray. The haft is of
hard wood and unusually long (7.2 inches). It is noticeable for being
attached at right angles to the head, by a very stout lashing of thong
of the usual kind, and further tightened by a short flat stick wedged
in below the head on one side. There appears to have been a similar
“key” on the other side. This is an unusual form.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Stone maul. 3/8]
Fig. 26, No. 89654 [906], is from Nuwŭk. The head is an oblong, nearly
cylindrical, water-worn pebble of black quartzite, 7.1 inches long;
the haft is of reindeer antler, and the lashing of seal thong.
Fig. 27, No. 89655 [1241], from Utkiavwĭñ. The head of this maul is a
long pebble of rather coarse-grained gray syenite, and is peculiar in
having a shallow groove roughly worked out round the middle to keep
the lashing from slipping. It is 4.7 inches long and 3.1 in diameter.
The haft is of reindeer antler 4.5 inches long, and the lashing of
seal thong peculiar only in the large number of turns in the spiral
wrappings.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Stone maul. 3/8]
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Stone maul. 3/8]
Fig. 28, No. 89657 [877], from Nuwŭk. This is peculiar in having the
haft fitted into a deep angular groove on one side of the head, which
is of pectolite and otherwise of the common pattern. The haft of
reindeer antler and the lashing of broad thong are evidently newer
than the head and are clumsily made and put on, the latter making
several turns about one side of the haft as well as through it and
round the head.
None of the unmounted heads, which are all of pectolite, are grooved
in this way to receive the haft, but No. 56658 [205] has two shallow,
incomplete grooves round the middle for lashings, and No. 56655 [218],
which is nearly square in section, has shallow notches on the edges
for the same purpose. One specimen of the series comes from Sidaru,
but differs in no way from specimens from the northern villages.
Stone mauls of this type have previously been seldom found among the
American Eskimo. The only specimens in the Museum from America are two
small unhafted maul heads of pectolite, one from Hotham Inlet and the
other from Cape Nome, and a roughly made maul from Norton Sound, all
collected by Mr. Nelson. The last is an oblong piece of dark-colored
jade rudely lashed to the end of a short thick stick, which has a
lateral projection round which the lashing passes instead of through a
hole in the haft. Among the “Chukches” at Pithkaj, however,
Nordenskiöld found stone mauls of precisely the same model as ours and
also used as bone crushers. He observed that the natives themselves
ate the crushed bone after boiling it with blood and water.[N190]
Lieut. Ray saw only dogs fed with it in the interior. Nordenskiöld
does not mention the kind of stone used for these tools, but the two
in the National Museum, collected by Mr. Nelson at Cape Wankarem, are
both of granite or syenite and have a groove for the lashing. (Compare
No. 89655 [1241], fig. 27.)
[Footnote N190: Vega, vol. 2, p. 113; figures on p. 112.]
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--Bone maul. 3/8]
In addition to the above-described stone mauls, there are in the
collection five nearly similar mauls of heavy bone, which have
evidently served the same purpose. They were all brought over for sale
from Utkiavwĭñ at about the same time, and from their exceedingly oily
condition were evidently brought to light in rummaging round in the
old “blubber-rooms,” where they have long lain forgotten. Four of
these differ in no respect from the stone mauls except in having the
heads made of whale’s rib; the fifth is all in one piece.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Bone maul. 3/8]
The following figures will illustrate the general form of these
implements: Fig. 29, No. 89847 [1046]: The head is a section of a
small rib, 4.8 inches long, and has a deep notch on each side to
receive the lashing. The haft is probably of spruce (it is so
impregnated with grease that it is impossible to be sure about it),
and is rough and somewhat knobby, with a rounded knob on the butt and
two shallow finger notches on the under side of the grip. It is
attached by a lashing of stout thong of the ordinary pattern. Fig. 30,
No. 89849 [1047]: The head is a straight four-sided block of whale’s
rib, 6 inches long. The deep notches for the lashing, one on each
side, are 1 inch behind the middle. The haft is a roughly whittled
knotty piece of spruce, and instead of a knob has a thick flange on
the lower side of the butt. The lashing is of fourteen or fifteen
turns of seal twine, and keyed upon each side by a roughly split stick
thrust in under the head. Fig. 31, No. 89846 [1048]: This is peculiar
in having the haft not attached at or near the middle of the head, but
at one end, which is shouldered to receive it. The haft is of the
common pattern and attached as usual, the lashing being made of very
stout sinew braid. The head is a section of a small rib 6 inches long.
Fig. 32, No. 89845 [1049]: This is made in one piece, and roughly
carved with broad cuts from a piece of whale’s jaw. The grooves and
holes in the bone are the natural canals of blood vessels. All these
mauls are battered on the striking face, showing that they have been
used.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Bone maul. 3/8]
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Bone maul. 3/8]
At the first glance it seems as if we had here a series illustrating
the development of the stone hammer. Fig. 32 would be the first form,
while the next step would be to increase the weight of the head by
lashing a large piece of bone to the end of the haft, instead of
carving the whole laboriously out of a larger piece of bone. The
substitution of the still heavier stone for the bone would obviously
suggest itself next. The weak point in this argument, however, is that
the advantage of the transition from the first to the next form is not
sufficiently obvious. It seems to me more natural to suppose that the
hafted stone hammer has been developed here, as is believed to have
been the case elsewhere, by simply adding a handle to the pebble which
had already been used as a hammer without one. These bone implements
are then to be considered as makeshifts or substitutes for the stone
hammer, when stones suitable for making the latter could not be
procured. Now, such stones are rare at Point Barrow, and must be
brought from a distance or purchased from other natives; hence the
occasional use of such makeshifts as these. This view will account for
the rarity of these bone hammers, as well as the rudeness of their
construction. No. 89845 [1049] would thus be merely the result of
individual fancy and not a link in the chain of development.