Fig. 380 (No. 89826 [1358] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a clever, though somewhat roughly made, mechanical doll. It represents a man dressed in deerskins sitting with his legs outstretched and holding in his extended left hand a drum and in his right a stick, as if beating the drum. The arms are of whalebone, and by pressing them he can be made to beat the drum. The doll is made of a single piece of wood—a knot with two branches, which make the legs. (I learned this from Capt. Herendeen, who saw this doll at the village before it was finished.) The height of the sitting figure is 11½ inches.
Fig. 381.—Mechanical toy: kaiak paddler.
A still more ingenious mechanical toy which, however, like the preceding, was made for sale, is shown in Fig. 381 (No. 89855 [1351] from Utkiavwĭñ). This is a man sitting in a kaiak in the attitude of paddling on the left side with a single-bladed paddle. His arms are of whalebone, and by means of strings he can be made to paddle and turn his head from side to side. The kaiak is 29 inches long, very neatly carved from a single block of wood, and solid except at the cockpit. The bottom is flat, to allow it to stand on the floor, but it is otherwise precisely of the model of the kaiaks in the Museum from the Mackenzie and Anderson region. The nation who made it called it a “Kûñmû´d’lĭñ” kaiak. It is painted all over with red ocher, except on the bottom. The figure has no legs and fits into the cockpit, which is without any coaming. The head is separate and mounted on a long, slender pivot, which is fitted into a hole in the neck just loosely enough to allow it to turn easily. It is dressed in a hood of seal gut. The face is very natural, though rather rudely carved, and is lightly colored all over with red ocher, with the mouth painted deeply red, and the eyebrows, eyes, nostrils, and beard marked with black lead. The arms are narrow strips of whalebone, the ends of which protrude at the wrists, and are tied to the paddle by the ends of the strings which work it. The body is covered with a gut shirt.
Fig. 382.—Kaiak carved from a block of wood.
The paddle is of the common shape, and has the blade and the lower end of the shaft painted red. The strings for working this contrivance are of fine sinew braid. One string is tied into a little hole in the edge of the hood, where the left ear would be, the other passes round the edge of the hood, and is tied at the right ear. These strings cross back of the head, and pass through two neat little ivory eyebolts inserted in the deck, 1 inch abaft the cockpit, and 1 inch apart. The strings from the hands are not crossed, but pass through two similar eyebolts, one at each edge of the deck, 2.5 inches from the cockpit. The ends of each set of strings are tied together. When the right pair and left pair of strings are pulled alternately, the man makes a stroke and looks to the right, then “recovers” and looks to the left. Both stroke and “recovery” are aided by the elasticity of the arms. This specimen shows a great deal of mechanical ingenuity, and was the only finished object of the kind seen.
Fig. 382 (No. 89856 [783] from Utkiavwĭñ) is a kaiak intended for a similar toy, which, when brought over for sale, had an unfinished armless doll in the cockpit. This was, unfortunately, lost in unpacking. The kaiak, which is 27.6 inches long, is not new, but has been freshly scraped and painted on deck. It is also a foreign kaiak, being precisely like a model brought by Mr. Nelson from Norton Sound. It is not unlikely that this boat itself came from that region through the “Nunatañmiun,” unless, possibly, a southern kaiak had passed through the hands of enough people to reach a point where some Point Barrow native might see it. As far as we know no Point Barrow natives visit the regions where this form is used, and the model seems too accurate to have been made from a description.