Large Float
date: label: Accession Date
content: 5 Nov 1887
label: Collection Date
content: 1887
name: label: Collector
content: Capt. Michael A. Healy
label: Donor Name
content: U. S. Revenue-Marine
notes: label: Notes
content: Seal skin.
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=237 , retrieved 1-7-2022; see web page for additional information: Float, Inupiaq. Removing a seal skin in one piece is a difficult art-the animal must be skinned from the inside, through its mouth. A whole skin can be filled with air to make a float for hunting or boating. Or it can be used as a storage container for water, oil, blubber, or greens. Whole sealskins are employed as hunting floats and as storage bags or pokes. Sealskin buoys are still common equipment for bowhead whaling, both in arctic coast Iñupiaq communities and on St. Lawrence Island. The following description is based on historic sources. Floats were often tanned with the hair removed, like this example from King Island. An ivory nozzle, using for filling the sealskin with air, was inserted into the neck or a flipper hole (as seen here) and secured with lashings. The other holes were tied off or stitched shut. After the float was inflated, the nozzle was plugged with a stopper made from wood, bone, ivory or antler. These nozzles were often ornamented with engraved lines and patterns, or carved to look like seals or other animals. A bar-shaped handle-like the one seen here-was often attached to the front end of large floats. These were used for handling and as a place to secure the harpoon line. Sealskin buoys were attached to harpoon lines when hunting large sea mammals. The float acted as a drag to slow the animal's movement through the water, and kept it from sinking when dead. The hunter then towed the animal to shore or to the ice edge. This set of equipment allowed hunters to take large seals, walrus and whales. Smaller floats were made from seal bladders, intestine or stomachs, for attachment to light darts. Inflated sealskins were also used as floats for seal and beluga nets. They could be lashed to the sides of an umiaq [open skin boat] in rough water to improve its stability, or used to protect the bottom of a boat when hauling it across ice. Sealskin pokes held water, food, and seal oil, both for home storage and for hunting and trading trips. Liquid ingredients were poured in through a nozzle with a flared mouthpiece. Stomachs and bladders of other animals-caribou, beluga whales, seals, and walruses-were similarly used. Among other things, pokes and bladders were filled with meat, beluga skin, seasonal greens, blubber in seal oil, and oil from walrus and whales.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 7 Jan 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: King Island, 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: 019774
label: USNM Number
content: E129582-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Float
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 2 m