Bow Drill Spindle
date: label: Accession Date
content: 7 Jan 1869
name: label: Donor Name
content: Roderick R. MacFarlane
notes: 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/169 , retrieved 1-28-2020: Spindle for bow drill. The cylindrical wooden shaft tapers towards the end that was held in a drill bearing. An iron bit has been inserted into the other end, and is held in place with a lashing of twisted sinew. The shaft is decorated with a lightly incised line that spirals along its length. More information here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/20: The bow drills in the MacFarlane Collection were used for boring holes into wood, antler, bone and ivory. The drill spindle (shaft) has a bit at one end, and the other end is shaped to fit into a bearing that is held between the teeth. The spindle is rotated by wrapping a slack thong attached at each end of a drill bow around it, and moving the bow back and forth. Ancestral Inuvialuit also used another type of bow drill for starting fires.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 21 Apr 2020
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: 69A00012
label: USNM Number
content: E7464-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Drill