All these boxes are very old and were painted inside with red ocher, which has turned dark brown from age. Tools are nowadays kept in a large oblong, flat satchel, ĭkqûxbwĭñ, which has an arched handle of ivory or bone stretched lengthwise across the open mouth. These bags are always made of skin with the hair out, and the skins of wolverines’ heads are the most desired for this purpose. The collection contains four such bags. No. 89794 [1018], Fig. 166, is the type of these bags. The bottom of the bag is a piece of short-haired brown deerskin, with the hair out, pieced across the middle. The sides and ends are made of the skins of four wolverine heads, without the lower jaw, cut off at the nape and spread out and sewed together side by side with the hair outward and noses up. One head comes on each end of the bag and one on each side, and the spaces between the noses are filled out with gussets of deerskin and wolverine skin. A narrow strip of the latter is sewed round the mouth of the bag. The handle is of walrus ivory, 14½ inches long and about one-half inch square. There is a vertical hole through it one-half inch from each end, and at one end also a transverse hole between this and the tip. One end of the thong which fastens the handle to the bag is drawn through this hole and cut off close to the surface. The other end is brought over the handle and down through the vertical hole and made fast with two half-hitches into a hole through the septum of the nose of the head at one end of the bag. The other end of the handle is fastened to the opposite nose in the same way, but the thong is secured in the hole by a simple knot in the end above. On one side of the handle is an unfinished incised pattern.
Fig. 167.—Tool bag of wolverine skin.
Fig. 167, No. 89776 [1004], is a similar bag, made of four wolverine heads with the lower jaws attached. The bottom is of stout leather without hair. The mouth is tied up by a bit of thong passed through the nostrils of the two side heads so that it can spread open only about 1¾ inches. The handle is broad and flat, made of walrus ivory, and ornamented with an incised border on top. One end is broken and pieced out with reindeer antler secured by a clumsy “fishing” of seal twine, which is passed through holes in the two parts. The pieces seem to have been riveted together as in the drill bow, No. 89777 [1004b] (Fig. 154), which belongs to this bag. There is a rivet still sticking in the antler. It is possible that the ivory may have broken in the process of riveting the two together. The handle has two vertical holes at each end for the thong, by which it is fastened to the end noses, both in the median line and joined by a short channel on top of the handle. This bag was the property of the Nunatañmiun Ilûbw’ga, so frequently mentioned, and was purchased with all its contents.
Fig. 168.—Drills belonging to the tool bag.
These are two bow drills, one large and one small (Figs. 168a and 168b, Nos. 89778 and 89779 [1004a]); a drill bow (Fig. 154, No. 89777 [1004b]); a mouthpiece (Fig. 155, No. 89787 [1004c]); a large crooked knife with a sheath (Fig. 114, No. 89780 [1004d]); a flint flaker (No. 89752 [1004e]); a comb for deerskins (Fig. 169, No. 89781 [1005]); a haircomb made of antler (No. 89785 [1006]); a fishhook (No. 89783 [1007]); and a small seal harpoon head (No. 89784 [1008]).