Woman's Knife
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1880
name: label: Donor Name
content: Edward W. Nelson
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "LABEL: "WOMAN'S KNIFE (ULU).--BLADE OF IRON, USUAL FORM, INSERTED INTO A CIRCULAR SEGMENT OF WALRUS IVORY. A DIMINUTIVE SPECIMEN." ILLUS. IN USNM AR, 1890; P1. 63, FIG. 5; P. 416. LOANED TO ALASKA STATE MUSEUM 3-31-83. LOAN RETURNED 09 23 87."
label: Notes
content: This object 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 https://alaska.si.edu/record.asp?id=100 , retrieved 12-17-2021; see web page for additional information: Woman's knife, Inupiaq. A small uluuraq [ulu], or semi-circular knife, is used by skin sewers for all kinds of precise cutting. This size was also employed to skin a seal from the inside, through its mouth. Larger ulus are used for cutting meat, blubber, and fish. Knives with semi-circular blades-the ulu, also called a "woman's knife"-are found throughout the western Arctic and are still widely used today. The blade was originally made from slate or chipped stone and later replaced with steel, usually a piece of saw blade. The blade fits into a slot in the handle (made of wood, woven root, antler or ivory) or is lashed to it. Ivory handles are often decorated with geometric designs or carved into animal forms. Ulus of various sizes are used to skin and cut up game and fish, to cut blubber, as an eating utensil, and for working with skins and furs to make clothing. John Murdoch-in the Barrow area from 1881 to1883-wrote that "whenever a woman wishes to cut anything, from her food to a thread in her sewing, she uses an [ulu] in preference to anything else . . . making the cut by pushing instead of drawing." H. R. Thornton-who lived in Wales from 1890 to 1893-wrote that "some old women, whom we employed to make sealskin and deerskin garments for us, quite turned up their noses at our-as they considered them-newfangled shears and scissors." Unlike scissors, a metal-bladed ulu cuts a skin or fur without cutting the hair and allows a sewer to cut beveled skin edges for close-fitting piecework, which also cannot be done with scissors. A small ulu like this one from Unalakleet is called an uluuraq in Qawiaraq Iñupiaq. This type is used for making clothing and is kept it in a woman's sewing bag.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 31 Jan 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Unalakleet, Norton Sound, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Inupiaq
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 80A00050
label: USNM Number
content: E43866-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Knife
physicalDescription: label: Length
content: 5.2388 cm
label: Length - Object
content: 5.6 cm