МАЭ № 2888-49

Light harpoon

Kodiak Eskimos

first half of 19th century

wood, paint, ivory, seal sinew, bald eagle feather, caribou antler

length 123 cm, length from the top of the shaft to the wrapping 15.5 cm, diameter at the top of the shaft 1.8 cm, diameter of the shaft 1.5 сm

“The harpoon points used by the Aleuts for hunting otters are made of bone and are notched on one side so that they cannot be dislodged from the otter when it dives into the water. The harpoon points, which are usually about one and a half vershoks (a vershok is 1 ¾” or 4.4 centimeters) in length, are attached to a smooth stick (shaft) which, once the point penetrates an otter, falls away from the point which remains in the animal. The Aleuts immediately retrieve every shaft noting who had made it and thus determining to whom the end (point.—S.K.) belongs. It often happens that an otter is wounded ten or more times” (Markov 1856: 97-98).

Ethnography of America