Man's Blubber Knife
date: label: Accession Date
content: 21 Dec 1866
name: label: Donor Name
content: Roderick R. MacFarlane
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "ILLUS. IN PROCEEDINGS, USNM, VOL. 60; NO. 5; P. 48."
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/25 , retrieved 12-30-2019: Knife with a long iron blade hafted in a two-piece handle made from whalebone. A hide thong wrapped around the handle secures the blade, and would have made the handle easier to grip. The blade is sharpened along one edge only. Two pairs of lines cut into the back of the blade near the handle may be ownership marks. This object is identified in the Smithsonian Institution catalogue as a 'blubber knife', and was probably used for flensing beluga and bowhead whales.
label: Notes
content: Flensing is the removing of the blubber or outer integument of whales, separating it from the animal's meat.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 24 Feb 2021
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Northwest Territories, Canada, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Inuit, Inuvialuk (Inuvialuit)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 66A00090
label: USNM Number
content: E2077-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Knife