Sea Otter Arrow
date: label: Accession Date
content: 12 Mar 1942
name: label: Donor Name
content: Baltimore Museum Of Art
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Bone foreshaft with detachable barbed copper head." Illus. Fig. 159, pp. 164-5 in Crowell, Aron, Amy F. Steffian, and Gordon L. Pullar. 2001. Looking both ways: heritage and identity of the Alutiiq people. Fairbanks, Alaska: University of Alaska Press. Identified there as Sugpiaq/Alutiiq from Copper River, near Prince William Sound.
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=357, retrieved 8-29-2012: Sea otter arrow, Sugpiaq (Alutiiq), Chugach. rruq "arrow" - Language: Chugach Sugpiaq (Prince William Sound dialect) Men in kayaks hunted sea otters using arrows that were designed like miniature harpoons. The barbed point, made of bone or copper, came off the arrow shaft after striking its target but remained attached by a braided sinew bridle, forcing the otter to drag the shaft behind. Sea otter hunters traveled worked as a team. When one man spotted an otter, he raised his paddle to signal the other boats, which formed a circle around the swimming animal to shoot each time it came up. Experienced otters were said to bat the arrows aside with their paws. "When the first arrow hits the sea otter, they'll dive. The arrow's got a string attached on the arrowhead to slow the otter down, but it will dive again and again. The arrow goes crossways in the water. Everyone can see which way the arrow is going; and after the first hit, anybody can shoot it." - Larry Matfay, 1983, from the Alutiiq Museum oral history archive.
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 16 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Copper River / Prince William Sound (Near), Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Alutiiq (Sugpiaq), Chugach
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 162535
label: USNM Number
content: E382243-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Arrow
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 79 cm