Seal Retriever
date: label: Accession Date
content: 14 Jun 1943
label: Collection Date
content: 1891 to 1898
name: label: Collector
content: Joseph Stanley-Brown
label: Donor Name
content: Mrs. Joseph Stanley-Brown
notes: label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Notes
content: From card: "Wooden; black; 3 iron tines."
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=358, retrieved 5-14-2014: Seal retriever Seals can sink quickly when shot with a rifle, making them difficult to recover. Contemporary hunters use this seal retriever or “sea dog” to hook the animals and pull them toward shore. Even in the days before guns were available, hooks on long throwing lines were occasionally needed to snag and retrieve the floating carcasses of sea mammals and birds. With traditional technology, however, the recovery of animals was usually helped by the fact that they were attached to floating gear such as seal darts, darts with bladders, or sealskin buoys. With the use of rifles, the kayou} [retriever, "sea dog"] became more important because sea mammals usually sink when shot. Quick work with the retriever will prevent their loss.
label: Notes
content: From Elders' discussions of the boots in 2003 with Mary N. Bourdukofsky, Vlass Shabolin, Maria Turnpaugh and Daria Dirks (Tanadgusix Foundation) at the National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian, 4/07/2003-4/11/2003. Also participating: Aron Crowell and Bill Fitzhugh (NMNH) and Suzi Jones (AMHA). The comments in this section are from the discussion of a similar retriever E383192. Vlass Shabolin: Okay, this is what we call kayou} [retriever, "sea dog"] in our language, in Aleut. In English if we talk about it, we call it "sea dog." You have a line on the end of it that's 75 to 100 feet long. When you kill an animal in the water which is maybe 100 feet away from the shoreline, then you throw this out on the other side of the seal. The front end is big, because it will bob down that way and come in and grab the seal hide [when you pull the line in]. Then you retrieve the seal onto the beach. This is a very handy tool to have when you're out hunting, because we don't want to loose our animal. And every hunter makes one of his own. These were made with the driftwood, from a baseball bat nowadays. They're carried on the outside of the packsack when they're out hunting. So when they go to the rookeries on the cliffs there to hunt the seals, they take it out and check the line and make sure it's not tangled. As soon as they shoot an animal then they grab it, and they run down to the rocks on the side of the cliff there and throw this kayou} out and bring in the animal. Then two or three guys if they're together there go ahead and start skinning the seals. Mary Bourdukofsky: They use if for bird hunting too when they drop in the water. Covered hooks Vlass Shabolin: This is the proper way [to keep it]. So as not to injure yourself, you cover the sharp end of the hooks. They put it in their packsacks so it won't tie up on the rope. Daria Dirks: What do you cover it with? Vlass Shabolin: This one here's got wood. This guy [who made it] knows what he is doing. For ours, if we have some foam, we put it over the hooks.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 16 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Aleutian 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: 165342
label: USNM Number
content: E383191-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Seal Retriever