Sealing Stool
date: label: Accession Date
content: 23 Nov 1883
name: label: Collector
content: Lt P.H. Ray
label: Collector
content: John Murdoch
label: Collector
content: Middleton Smith
label: Donor Name
content: U.S. Signal Service
notes: label: Notes
content: From card: "Illus. in BAE 9th AR, fig. 256, p. 255 also USNM Rept, 1900; fig. 8; p. 210".
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=640 , retrieved 1-4-2022; see web page for additional information: Sealing stool, Inupiaq. Hunters waiting to harpoon seals at their breathing holes stood on small stools to keep their feet from being chilled by the ice. This spruce stool is thin and light, with leather thongs to brace the legs. The hole in the top was for carrying and hanging. Ringed seals swim under the sea ice and come up for air at breathing holes. In the past, hunters with harpoons waited at the holes, standing silently and motionlessly on small stools, which elevated their feet, protecting them from the frozen surface. A feather mounted on a T-shaped ivory pin that was placed in the hole revealed the seal's first exhalation, which was the signal to strike. [The] harpoon [used] has a "toggling" head .... The wedge-shaped head was designed to slip off the harpoon's long ... foreshaft and turn sideways inside the seal. It is attached to a line that the hunter used for pulling the seal out of the water, after he first enlarged its hole with a pick on the harpoon's upper end. ... This spruce wood stool is thin and light, with leather thongs to brace the legs. The hole in the top is for carrying and hanging.
label: Notes
content: This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 4 Feb 2022
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: Point Barrow, 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: 013712
label: USNM Number
content: E89887-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Sealing Stool
physicalDescription: label: Length - Object
content: 25.5 cm