Fig. 296.—Skin scraper.
Fig. 296 (No. 89312 [1336] from Utkiavwĭñ) is another wooden handle, in which the excavation for the third and fourth fingers is merely a large round hole on the right side, while in front the handle is cut into two short lobes, between which in a deep groove the forefinger fits. There is a hollow for the thumb under the left lobe and one on the right for the middle finger. No. 89311 [1079] from the same village is almost exactly similar. These are the only two specimens of the kind which I recollect seeing. A rather large flint-bladed scraper with a wooden handle very much the shape of that of No. 89309 [1135] is the tool most generally used at the present day. The blades are all of the same general shape and vary in size from the little one above mentioned (No. 89322 [1426], Fig. 291a), only 0.4 inch long, to blades like No. 89612 [820], Fig. 297, from Utkiavwĭñ. This is newly made from light gray translucent flint and is 5 inches long. The name kibûgû, applied to this specimen by the native from whom it was purchased, appears to refer either to the material or the unusual size. The blade is ordinarily called kuki, “a claw.” With the ivory handles a blade about 1 or 1½ inches is commonly used and with the wooden ones a considerably larger one, 2 to 3 inches in length. The handles vary in size to fit the hands of the owners, but are all too small for an average white man’s hand. All that we collected are for the right hand.
Fig. 297.—Flint blade for skin scraper.
This pattern of skin scraper which appears from the Museum collections to be the prevailing one from Point Barrow to Norton Sound, is evidently the direct descendant of the form used still farther south, which consists of a stone or bone blade of the same shape, mounted on a wooden handle often a foot or 18 inches long, which has the other end bent down into a handle like the butt of a pistol. Shortening this handle (a process shown by specimens in the Museum) would bring the worker’s hand nearer to the blade, thus enabling him to guide it better. Let this process be continued till the whole handle is short enough to be grasped in the hand and we have the first subtype described, of which the others are clearly improvements.
A still more primitive type of scraper is shown by Fig. 298, No. 89651 [1295] from Utkiavwĭñ, the only specimen of the kind seen. This has a flint blade, like those of the modern scrapers, inserted in the larger end of a straight haft of reindeer antler, 5½ inches long. We did not learn the history of this tool in the hurry of trade, but from the shape of the blade it is evidently a scraper. Its use as a skin scraper is rendered still more probable by the fact that the scrapers used by some of the eastern Eskimo (there are specimens in the Museum from Cumberland Gulf and Pelly Bay) have straight handles, though shorter than this.