Fig. 181.—Feathering of the Eskimo arrow.
Four kinds of arrows were used: the bear arrow, of which there were three varieties, the deer arrow, the arrow for geese, gulls, and other large fowl, and the blunt headed arrow for killing small birds without mangling them.
[Bear arrows.]—
These are of three kinds, all having a broad, sharp pile, often barbed. The first kind has a pile of flaked flint, called kūki (“claw” or “nail”), and was known as kukĭ´ksadlĭñ (“provided or fitted with claw material”). Of this kind we have eight complete arrows and one shaft.
No. 89240 [25], Fig. 182, will serve as the type. The pile is of black flint, double edged and sharp pointed, 2 inches long, with a short tang inserted into a cleft in the end of the stele, and secured by a whipping of about fifteen turns of fine sinew. The stele is of spruce, 25½ inches long and four-tenths inch in diameter, and painted with red ocher from the feathering to 5 inches from the pile. The three feathers, apparently those of the gyrfalcon, have their ends simply whipped to the stele. They are 6 inches long. This is one of the two arrows from Nuwŭk with three feathers.
