Lance Head And Sheath
date: label: Accession Date
content: 1874
name: label: Donor Name
content: U.S. Coast Survey
notes: label: Notes
content: FROM CARD: "16348-74. NO.16350:FOR STUDY & EXAMINATION: MR. STEWART CULIN. MARCH 24, 1897. UNIV OF PENN. PHILA. PA." FROM CARD: "16350- LANCE POINT AND SHEATH A&B. B:1/83 SITES INUA LOAN-SHEATH."
label: Notes
content: Photo and description in Fienup-Riordan, Ann. 2007. Yuungnaqpiallerput, The Way We Genuinely Live: Masterworks of Yup'ik Science and Survival. Seattle: University Of Washington Press, p. 144. Qalagyaq Walrus Harpoon Point. Frank Andrew [from Kwigillingok] noted: "This is the covering, bound together with spruce roots. This also has a small point at the spearhead's edge, that would pierce when it hits."
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=39 , retrieved 10-26-2021; see web page for additional information: Lance head and sheath, Yup'ik. Using a lance with detachable points, a hunter could repeatedly stab a beluga whale, walrus, or seal, attaching a new point for each thrust. This point goes inside a wooden sheath with a wolf head design. This is a detachable point for a killing lance, used to stab sea mammals that had already been wounded by darts or harpoons. It has an iron blade, ivory body with spur on one side, and a short wooden shaft with faint black and red bands at the end, probably a hunter's personal mark. The point slides neatly inside a protective box that has been hollowed from a block of wood and carved to represent a wolf. The wooden sheath is lashed together with split spruce roots. A killing lance (with supply of points like this one) was part of the small arsenal of weapons that hunters carried on the front decks of their kayaks. From his late 19th century observations, Edward Nelson described the fast action and efficiency of the "repeating lance": "These lances are used when the seal or walrus has been disabled, so that it can not keep out of reach of its pursuers, when the hunter paddles up close alongside and strikes the animal, driving the detachable head in its entire length. The head [point] remains in the animal, and the hunter immediately fits another point into the shaft and repeats the blow, thus inserting as many of the barbed heads as possible, until the animal is killed or the supply of points exhausted. Every hunter has his private mark cut on these points, so that, when the animal is secured, each is enabled to reclaim his own."
label: Record Last Modified
content: 26 Oct 2021
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: Nunivak Island, Bering Sea, Alaska, United States, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Yup'ik
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 003195
label: USNM Number
content: E16350-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Lance / Sheath
physicalDescription: label: Length - Lance Head
content: 26.5 cm
label: Length - Sheath
content: 19.7 cm