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THE 'KAIAK' AND ITS APPURTENANCES
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more ingenious appliance, composed of such materials as bone, sealskin, and drift-wood; and we may be sure that it has cost the labour of many generations.
Two forms of this harpoon are in use in Greenland. The one is called unâk; its butt-end is finished off with nothing more than a bone knob, and it is longer and slighter than the other. This is called ernangnak, and has at its butt-end two flanges or wings of bone, now commonly made of whale-rib, designed to increase the weight of the harpoon and to guide it through the air. It is one of these which is represented on p. 36.[1]
At Godthaab the ernangnak was most in use; but I heard old hunters complaining that,
- ↑ In North Greenland there is yet a third and larger form of the harpoon, which is used in walrus hunting, and is hurled without a throwing-stick; it has instead two bone knobs, one for the thumb and one for the forefinger.