pany seems to have created originally for the Indian trade; at first the notches were intended for the lashing. They are very similar to the iron blades which the Indians round about the great Laurentian lakes inserted in the edge of their angular tomahawks. From the Image missingFig. 12.Snow knives. plains they are also known as knife and spear blades and, in very small size, as arrow heads. These blades are used in the south of the Barren Grounds undoubtedly because the Eskimos there have learned to know them during their two-century old connection with Churchill. And indeed their influence can also be traced among the northern Eskimos.[1] Among these, however, the influence of the H. B. C. up to a few years ago has been so small that the ordinary butcher's knives, presumably introduced at first by the whalers, have nevertheless quite obtained the upper hand. And furthermore, it is these whose form most closely approaches that of the old bone knives.
Of the two-edged snow knives a specimen was collected from the Pâdlimiut, Hikoligjuaq (P 28: 76; fig. 12b). The blade, the free part of which is 22.3 cm long, is inserted in a round handle of antler which widens out a little at the rear end. Total length 47.3 cm. Another snow knife (P 28: 77; fig. 12 a), 51 cm long, from the same tribe, Eskimo Point, is of the same type. The handle is of wood, mounted with tin at the fore end, narrowing towards the rear end, where it is widened out bilaterally.
In the course of time the erection of a snow hut has often been described from various regions within the Eskimo territory, including some from the Caribou Eskimos.[2] Two men preferably join in erecting the house, one of them cutting blocks while the other builds. In this manner a temporary house for five or six people can be put in an hour. There is no reason, however, why one man should
