Caribou belt and ornament

Caribou hide, teeth and hooves

This caribou hoof belt and caribou teeth ornament are reproductions number 15 and 16 of 17 in the Central Arctic set.  They are based on Inuit artifacts in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Civilization.  Once again, the copyright for the images of the original artifacts lie with the CMC, so if you'd like to check out the artifacts, you can visit the Online Artifact Catalog and see them here:

IV-D-1301: Belt

IV-D-1013: Ornament

Belt: The original artifact has 32 polar bear claws strung from it on sinew thread, which would require the claws from two bears.    I managed to source 7 of the 32 claws before the client decided that we should go with caribou hooves or dew claws in place of the bear claws.  I was happy with that decision because I didn't know where I was going to get the rest of the claws from.  The switch meant I needed to get the feet from four caribou instead of the toes from two polar bears, which seemed much less daunting.

Caribou hooves and dew claws strung on a hide belt with sinew

Rangifer tarandus hooves

The hooves that I found still had the toe bones in them and were attached to a bit of skin.  I boiled them down, soaked them in water and detergent, and then water and borax.  While they were still wet, I popped the toe bones out to make hollow hoof cones.  There was a lot of variability in the size and shape of the hooves and dew claws and in the end I used a combination of medium sized hooves and large dew claws, because I felt that it gave the best match to the look of the original artifact.

The belt hanging from a door - its big!

The scale of this piece is a little deceptive.  The length of the artifact is listed as 136.5 cm.  I made the rangifer tarandus hide belt a few centimetres longer than that so that when I tied the loops and knots in the end of the belt it would end up being 136.5cm long.  It still seems quite long, but if it was worn outside of a skin parka, its just the right size.  The caribou hooves, aren't exactly authentic for the piece, but they create the same generally impression, size and shape of the polar bear claws, so I'm satisfied with the end product.  The hooves make a nice tinkling sound when the belt moves.

Caribou teeth and rawhide

Ornament:  This piece has 9 sets of caribou teeth mounted in caribou rawhide, suspended from a short belt.  This one was a bit of a challenge.  I've been working from photos for all of the pieces in this set and usually I have at least a front and back view, but these particular piece was mounted on a board and the reverse image is a picture of a sheet of plywood.  Fortunately, the McCord Museum in Montreal has a similar piece in its collection and their online catalog has amazing photos; ME982X.156 Ornament.  The caribou teeth ornament from the McCord Collection is in worse condition than the CMC piece, but the photos are so good that I could still see a lot of details about the construction, including the reverse side of the teeth.

Rawhide ornament with caribou teeth and sewn with sinew

Caribou teeth, loose after boiling

When I originally saw this piece I though that the teeth were still embedded in the jawbone, which was then suspended from the hide straps.  I was still working on that assumption when I boiled the jawbones, so I was extremely disappointed when the teeth became loose from the boiling and the left and right mandible split apart down the middle on many of the jawbones.  They seemed ruined.  Some of the teeth came out individually, but the majority popped out as a set, still embedded in the skin and gums which shriveled and detached from the bone during the boiling.  However, it turned out that was exactly what I needed - I just didn't know it at the time.  If you check the McCord piece you can see that the teeth are still embedded in that little flap of gums and palate.

Teeth set in the drying rawhide

All of the jawbones that I got from the Province were missing the middle two incisors, which had been removed for aging studies.  This meant I had to mix and match the teeth a bit to reconstruct complete sets of 8 teeth.  I embedded them in damp rangifer tarandus rawhide strips cut to the shape of the end of a caribou jaw.  As they dried and shrank they held the teeth firmly in place and took on the rich golden colour seen in the rawhide in the artifact.  They even wrinkled up the same as the artifact.

A little macabre, but I like it

When they were dried, I added a bit of hide glue to the back of the teeth to keep them solid, although the constriction of the drying rawhide really held them firmly all on its own.  I sewed the teeth sections to the whitish bands at the top of the ornament.  I tried to use similar stitches to the sinew thread on the McCord ornament.  Overall, I'm really happy with how this piece turned out - I think its a really close match for the original at the CMC.


Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Copper Inuit Harpoon Reproduction

Copper Inuit Harpoon Reproduction

This reproduction of a Copper Inuit sealing harpoon in the collection of the Canadian Museum of Civilization is reproduction number 14 of 17 in the Central Arctic set.  It's based on photos of a disassembled harpoon from the online artifact catalog at the CMC.  I wasn't around when the original was made and used, so take my reconstruction with a grain of salt.  I think all of the pieces are there, so I feel confident about the way everything looks and fits, but I'm still working out the arrangement and position of the sealskin lines and sinew lashing. You can view the original artifact here:

Harpoon: IV-D-692

Disassembled Copper Inuit harpoon reproduction as the original appeared in the reference photos.  The main shaft is 95.5 cm long.  When its fully assembled the reproduction is 143 cm long, with a line that is approximately twice the length of the complete harpoon.

Antler socket, riveted to wood shaft

The main shaft of the harpoon is wood and antler.  I used tamarack for the wood, because I know it was used for harpoon shafts in the past and would give the relatively small diameter shaft a good weight.  A spruce or pine shaft would feel feather light by comparison.  The socket is a round section of caribou antler that has been spliced and riveted onto the wood shaft.  

The long bent antler foreshaft fits tightly into the socket.  For the reproduction, I was asked by the client to permanently fix the foreshaft into the socket.  Which isn't a problem.  Given the size and shape of the proximal end of these foreshafts they appear to be designed to be fixed rigidly in place.  Some foreshafts at meant to rotate out of the socket on impact, but I don't think that is the case with this one.  Everything here seems designed for a permanently fixed foreshaft, held in place with friction and reinforced with a braided sinew cord that is threaded through a hole through a hole near the base of the foreshaft.

Braided Sinew 

Tying on the foreshaft was one of the puzzles.  There is a length of braided sinew cord wrapped around the socket of the harpoon in the reference photos, but its obviously just been wound there so it doesn't become separated from the rest of the harpoon.  I assume that this is the braided sinew line used to tie the foreshaft in place.  One end of the line is tied around the neck of the socket on the mainshaft, it loops up through the foreshaft and back down the length of the mainshaft.  It gets tied back on at the neck of the socket and then at two more points along the main shaft.  That's the part that I don't quite understand; I'm not sure what the function is of the extra length of line running down the mainshaft.  

The line is knotted in two places like this

I've copied what I've seen in photos and illustrations, and learned a cool new knot, but I don't really understand the purpose of the line.  I think that it must link up with the harpoon line somehow to create tension in the harpoon line, but I'd don't exactly know how.

I've wrapped the length of the harpoon line around the butt of the mainshaft and then threaded it back through the sinew lashing.  I've seen European whaling harpoons rigged in a similar way and it makes use of the braided sinew cord, but I'm not certain if its the correct rigging for this particular harpoon.

Lori has gripped the harpoon and line where its threaded back through the braided loop and is ready to throw or thrust with it.

Is this right?

Harpoon head on the foreshaft

The harpoon head on the original artifact is antler, with a steel endblade, but we went for antler with a copper endblade on this one.  With the bent foreshaft there are a few options on how to orient the harpoon head on the foreshaft.  The spur of the harpoon head could go on the outside, inside, or on the left or right side of the bend.  I've seen photos and illustrations showing the spur both inside and outside the curve of the foreshaft, but I think that outside the curve is more likely.   Boas illustrates the spur on the outside of the curve in his book, The Central Eskimo, and it would seem to accentuate the spur and the toggling action of the harpoon head as it catches in the seal and slides off.  If the spur were inside the curve, it would be more hidden and it would seem more likely to get caught up in the line instead of toggling unimpeded.

The lanyard is very long and split

That leaves the placement of the sealskin harpoon line when the harpoon head is in place.  Does it lie inside or outside the curve of the foreshaft?  If it was a straight foreshaft, the line would usually lie on the opposite side of the foreshaft as the spur, which would place it inside the curve of the bent foreshaft.  I suspect that's how this line should be positioned as well, because it sets the harpoon head up to slide off and toggle with the least potential for entanglement.  The only thing that makes me pause is that the line on this artifact seems to have a very long split lanyard attached to the harpoon head.  The split is even longer than it appears in the photos here, because it seems to be tied together in one or two spots, creating a series of long split openings in the line.  The split in the line seems so long, that it makes me wonder if the foreshaft is meant to run through the middle of it somehow.  It seems to be an intentional part of the design of the line and I don't think that split is explained or used if the line simply extends down the inside of the curve of the bent foreshaft.  Maybe someone reading knows the answer or has an idea.

With the spur of the harpoon head outside the curve in the foreshaft and the line on the inside, the harpoon head is primed to toggle. 

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

   

Skin Scraper with a Copper Bit

 Pistol grip scraper

This is kind of a cool reproduction scraper made on a split caribou antler.  At first glance, this might look like a  tool made on a random scrap of antler, but the handle was carefully selected to give a long straight section of beam ending in a forked notch.  There are a dozen or more of these scrapers with pistol grip handles in the Canadian Museum of Civilization's online artifact catalog, mainly from the Central Arctic.  The forked design was important to the function and when a second tine wasn't naturally available, or if it broke off, then it was added.  Here are links to two repaired scrapers where the small tines were added as a peg or with rivets.

You can see the specific artifact that this reproduction is based on in the CMC artifact catalog here:

Skin scraper: IV-D-439

The scraper from the end of the tine to the tip of the blade is roughly the width of my thumb and about 30 cm long.

These handles grow on Caribou

I've noticed occasional discrepancies in the CMC catalog between the measurements listed in the database and the photo reference.  In this case, the artifact in the link above is listed as being 37.5cm long in the text, but in the photo it looks to be slightly longer than the 20cm scale included in the photo.  Even with a bit of distortion from the perspective of the photo, the artifact doesn't look close to being twice as long as the photo scale.  The scraper I made is 30cm long, which I think is a reasonable guess of the actual artifact size.

Copper bit held in place with copper rivets

Most of the tine in the foreground was rebuilt

The specific scraper that I was asked to reproduce was made on an antler tine that was carefully selected to create just the right fork in the handle with very little modification.  I wasn't so lucky, I found an antler in my stockpile that had a long straight beam and small prong that matched the artifact, but the larger half of the fork was a lot bigger.  That meant I had to grind it down and refinish it.  Caribou antler is quite spongy on the inside and I couldn't leave the interior spongy antler exposed, because it changed the whole look of the piece.  I built a new antler surface in the part of the handle that I modified using a combination of glue, antler dust, sawdust, rock dust, paint, charcoal, and beeswax.  I've set it aside now.  I think its a reasonable reconstruction at the moment, although I might come back to it and fiddle around with it a bit more.  Its not an invisible repair, but its not distracting either.  If you didn't know it was there, I don't think it would catch your eye.

Square base, with flaring ears

The scraper bit is made from cold hammered copper, held in place with two copper rivets.  The bit edge is convex and flares slightly, creating slight ears on either side.  Its not perfectly flat and the working edge, especially at the ears, rolls up slightly.  The general shape of the scraper reminds me a little of the square based, earred chipped stone end scrapers that the Groswater Palaeoeskimo made.  It makes me wonder if maybe they would have been hafted in a handle like this.

Nain artifact, with comparable hafting area

This particular scraper is flat in the hafting area, where the rivets hold it in place, but some, like the one in this link, are are bent around 3 sides of the antler handle and secured that way.  This hafting method reminds reminds me of one of the objects that Amelia Fay found at her site on Black Island, near Nain, Labrador.  I don't know if Amelia's artifact is a scraper handle  (some ladles or scoop handles were attached the same way) but whatever it was riveted to might have fit on in the same way.
By the way, Amelia was interviewed on CBC radio yesterday about her work and you can listen to the podcast here: Black Island archeological dig leaves researchers puzzled... Thanks for the Elfshot shout out!


Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Central Arctic Bone Needle Case

Metacarpal needle case

This is a bone needle case reproduction based on Inuit artifacts from the Central Arctic that were made from the lower leg bones of caribou.  You can view the specific artifact that this piece is based on in the Canadian Museum of Civilization's online artifact catalog.

Needle Case: IV-D-151 a18

Central Arctic sewing kit reproductions, needle case, thimble, needles, sinew

 

Where to find the thimble and case

The metatarsals and, especially, the metacarpals of caribou are perfectly suited to making strong, sturdy tube containers.  Both ends of the bone are cut off and the interior canal is ground and cleaned out until its smooth inside.  The ends of the bones seem perfectly suited to make thimbles, and I suspect that they probably were used that way, although I can't say for certain.  Bird bones are sometimes used to make similar needle cases.  The bird bone tube will have a round cross section, while the metapodial tubes are D-shaped in cross section.

Needle Case: 13 cm x 2 cm x 1.5cm

I wasn't able to locate caribou metapodials, so I was forced to use the same bone from another species of deer. From what I can tell, the mid part of the shaft where the needle case comes from is pretty much identical, although the knuckle part of the bone would flare a bit more in caribou.  I antiqued it in tea and used charcoal and a bit of red ochre to bring out the incised pattern on the needle case.

Palaeoeskimo Needle Case Reproduction

The decorated and antiqued bone tube is as far as I need to take this reproduction, but a complete needle case would have a few more moving parts.  They're really clever little devices.  The reproduction of a Palaeoeskimo bird bone needle case shown on the left is one I made a few years ago and it illustrates some of the missing pieces.  All of the bone components are based on artifacts found at Port au Choix, NL.   A folded strip of sealskin that is twice as long as the tube would run through the middle of the case.  On one end of the leather strap there is a small stopper to keep the leather from sliding out of the tube.  Sometimes this is an awl or a simple bone or ivory button, as in the Palaeoeskimo example.  On the opposite end of the strap there is a little toggle to hold thimbles on the leather strap. I made leather thimbles for the Palaeoeskimo version because I'm not aware of any bone or ivory thimbles from Palaeoeskimo contexts - but I could be wrong.  I used a perforated bone tube for the toggle, but on Thule or Inuit needle case these toggles are often shaped like a tiny ox yoke or a wide "W" to hold your thimbles on the strap.  The needles are stuck into the sealskin and pulled inside the tube.  When you want to take your needles out you just pull the strip of leather, sliding the empty length of leather into the tube and your needles out.   It keeps your sewing kit together in one compact, sturdy container.

The Central Arctic Inuit sewing kit reproduction

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Palaeoeskimo Ivory Mask

This carving is on display at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau. The lines on the face may indicate tattoos.

To learn more about Palaeoeskimo art visit the online catalog of the Canadian Museum of Civilization's exhibit: Lost Visions, Forgotten Dreams.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Ulus

Metal bladed ulus in the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa

Iron, copper and horn ulu in the Canadian Museum of Civilization collected by Diamond Jenness

Slate with bone and metal with wood ulus in Pond Inlet

The Rooms, St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Copper Inuit Bows in the CMC

Lori's trip to Ottawa last weekend prompted me to revist some photos I took at the Canadian Museum of Civilization last year. I found a few photos of Copper Inuit Cable backed bows.

The Tuktut Nogait bow would have been cable backed, like these and you can see how there is extra lashing at the bend in the limb for the recurve. This is necessary for the cable to follow the line of the bow, but it also reinforces joins in the wood. I can't be certain from the photos, but it looks like the bow in the display case has a limb spliced on in exactly the same way as the Tuktut Nogait bow.

But there are also many differences. The CMC bows are much thicker limbed and the bows have quite square cross-sections. The Tuktut Nogait bow has very flat, delicate limbs by comparison. There doesn't seem to be an isolated grip in these bows either, whereas the Tuktut Nogait bow has a narrowed grip that protrudes on the belly side of the bow. Nevertheless, references like these will be useful when it comes time to assemble my bow, there is a lot of detail visible in the cable backing.

Here's a quick look at the bows I'm working on as of this morning. I've narrowed the staves a bit and tried to layout the length of the bows to avoid as many knots as possible (the Tuktut Nogait bow has no knots in the wood at all). Right now I'm working the backs. The growth rings on yew are so narrow that its a real challenge to plane the back down to a single growth ring, when they are only 1 mm thick. Once I get the backs properly planed, the rest of the shaping of the bows will be on the sides and the belly.

The Kitikmeot Heritage Society has more great information on making these kinds of bows on their website.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Photo Captions:
Top, Inuit Cable Backed Bows at the CMC
Second, Copper Inuit Bow and Hunting Case on display at the CMC, dates to before 1916
Third, Same bow, different view
Fourth, Yew staves in progress