МАЭ № 2868-195

Heavy harpoon for hunting whales

Kodiak Eskimos

wood, bone, urinary bladder, iron, paint

length 262.5 cm, diameter of the shaft 3.2 cm, length of the bladder with its plug 47 cm, width of the bladder 14 cm

“The shooters (hunters) traveling in single-hatched kayaks, would select yearling whales because their meat and carcass (fat—S.K.) would be more tender and tasty. When they spotted such a whale they would get no closer than three sazhens to it, trying to launch a harpoon under its side blade, which is what they call a flipper here, and then try to get away from it as quickly and carefully as possible so that the whale does not hit the hunter when making its dive or the wave caused by its dive does not overturn his kayak. If the harpoon does not hit the side flipper, he throws a harpoon under the back flipper or under the tail. The whale dives when it is wounded. When a harpoon hits its mark a whale will die in three days” (Gedeon 1994: 84).

Ethnography of America