I have already, in the earlier pages of this paper, referred to various
tools and implements.
In addition to these, the Koksoagmyut have comparatively few tools.
In former ages stone and ivory were fashioned into crude implements for
the purposes which are now better and more quickly served by instruments
of iron or steel.
These people have now been so long in more or less direct contact with
traders who have supplied them with these necessaries that it is rare to
find one of the knives used in former times. Certain operations,
however, are even to this day better performed with a knife made of
ivory. The ice from the kaiak bottom or the sides of the boat may best
be removed by means of an ivory knife, resembling a snow knife but
shorter. The steel knife is always kept sharp and if so used would, on
the unyielding, frozen skin-covering of those vessels, quickly cut a
hole. The Eskimo living remote from the trading stations use a snow
knife made from the tusk of a walrus or the main stem of the reindeer
antler.
That steel or iron is deemed an improvement on the former materials from
which cutting instruments were made is shown by the crude means now
employed. If the person has not a knife an unused spearhead, having an
iron point, is often employed instead for skinning animals and dressing
the skins.
Stone heads for weapons of all kinds have been discarded. Ivory spears
are at times used but these only when the hunter is close to the prey.
Some of the men have acquired considerable skill in fashioning iron into
the required shape. They eagerly stand around anyone who may be at work,
and evince the greatest curiosity in anything new.
The collection contains two of the snow knives referred to above. No.
3067 is a large snow knife, made from the lower portion of the main stem
of the horn of the male reindeer. It is simply half of the split horn
with the middle scooped out. The length is 12 inches. This form of
instrument is used more especially to smooth down the inequalities of
the blocks of snow after being placed in position. No. 3140 (Fig. 70) is
a large snow knife made of walrus ivory. It is 13 inches long and nearly
2 inches wide for the greater part of the blade, which terminates in a
rounded point. The instrument has two edges, and in general appearances
resembles a double-edged Roman sword. The handle is cut to fit to the
hand.
[Illustration: FIG. 70.--Ivory snow knife, Koksoagmyut.]
Among other peculiar implements collected is one represented in Fig. 71
(No. 3555), which is a "back-scratcher." This instrument consists of a
shaft made from a limb of a larch tree. It is 17 inches long and about
three-fourths of an inch through, flattened to less than half an inch
and tapering toward the end to be held in the hand. On the lower end is
a dish-shaped piece of reindeer horn, two and one-eighth inches long and
seven-eighths of an inch wide. Through the center of the piece of horn
an oblong hole has been cut for the insertion of the shaft or handle.
The edges of the horn piece are sharp as can be made. This piece is
one-third of an inch thick, and having the sharp edge up is convenient
for thrusting down the back to scratch one's self in places where the
hand could not reach on account of thick deerskin clothing. The Eskimo
name of the instrument is ku-mé-u-tîk, or that which removes lice.
[Illustration: FIG. 71.--Back-scratcher, Koksoagmyut.]
The steel needles obtained from the traders are kept in a little ivory
receptacle of various shapes, two of which are shown in Figs. 72 and 73.
This is hollow and filled with any sphagnum moss. One end is permanently
closed by a wooden or ivory plug, held in by little pegs. The plug in
the other end is easily taken out. The needle case is usually pierced to
receive a loop by which it may be hung to the belt or the workbag.
[Illustration: FIG. 72.--Ivory needle case. Koksoagmyut.]
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--Ivory needle case. Koksoagmyut.]
Needles are also kept in a kind of small cushion (Fig. 74) made of
sealskin, elaborately ornamented with beads and stuffed with sphagnum
moss. The cushion is perforated around the edge to receive the needles,
which would not easily go through the tough skin.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--Sealskin needle cushion, with thimble.
Koksoagmyut.]
Accompanying one of these needle cushions in the collection is one of
the old-fashioned thimbles such as are still used, although metal
thimbles are preferred. It is simply a strip of sealskin sewed into a
ring large enough to fit the forefinger, and is usually attached to the
needle cushion by a thong with an ivory toggle on the end, to prevent
the thimble from slipping off.
Small articles used in sewing, such as scraps of skin, needle cases,
sinew thread, thimbles, etc., are carried in small bags of deerskin,
which are often elaborately ornamented with beads of various colors,
like the specimen in the collection, No. 3047.