spear;
hunting equipment(?)
- Museum number
- Am1855,1126.307
- Description
-
Fish-spear (?), bird-spear (?) made of ivory, wood, sinew (?).
- Production date
- 1855 (before)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 132 centimetres
-
Width: 4 centimetres
-
Depth: 5 centimetres
- Curator's comments
- This spear is part of a group of four bird spears with five throwing sticks, registered sequentially, with the registered numbers 306-313. W.Parker Snow p 20. '279. Esquimaux Darts, with side barbs, used with throwing stick [sic] against fish in rivers; from Cambridge Bay, in 1853, by the officers of the "Enterprise". Register: '307. Another like last, but having single ivory head barbed on the two edges. L. 4' 4".' The Inuinnait/Cooper Eskimo did not generally have access to ivory, and Jenness 1846 does not record bird spears in their material culture. So that the ethnic designation of these bird spears remains to be determined (JCHK 13.1.12)
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1855
- Acquisition notes
- From the HMS Enterprise expedition.
- Department
- Africa, Oceania and the Americas
- Registration number
- Am1855,1126.307