Whale Dart
date: label: Accession Date
content: 3 Mar 1894
name: label: Donor Name
content: U.S. Commission of Fish & Fisheries
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "IN BOAT NO. 76280 [i.e. came associated with kayak # E398277]. #168,519--SEE LINE DRAWING IN PHOTO FILE UNDER ALEUT." Boat no. 76280 is Catalogue No. E398277.
label: Notes
content: 2 parts: wooden dart/harpoon shaft and bone and glass dart/harpoon head. Note re photos: Neg. # 99-20255 is an image of bone and glass harpoon head only (wooden shaft is not in photo).
label: Notes
content: Traditional bone Aleut harpoon head has been combined with a new material introduced by the Russians: glass, used as the point of the harpoon head; has sinew lashing. Presence of glass dates it to after 1750. Artifact was collected in Unalaska circa 1892.
label: Notes
content: Dart head is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center Alaska Native Collections: Sharing Knowledge website, by Aron Crowell, entry on this artifact http://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=650, retrieved 5-8-2014: Dart To spear fin and humpback whales, hunters in kayaks threw poison-coated darts with bone heads and points made of obsidian (volcanic glass). Whales died after several days as the slow-acting poison paralyzed their fins or tails, causing them to drown. The poison used was aconite, extracted by soaking and boiling the roots of the monkshood flower. Aconite-covered darts were also employed as deadly weapons for human warfare.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 9 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: Unalaska Island / Unalaska, Aleutian Islands / Unalaska Quad / Fox Islands, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Aleut (Unangax^ ; Unangan; Unangas)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 028022
label: USNM Number
content: E168519-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Dart
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 33 cm