The spear for salmon or other fish,
called _k=ak~eew~ei_, consists of a wooden staff, with a spike of
bone or ivory, three inches long, secured at one end. On each side of
the spike is a curved prong, much like that of a pitchfork, but made of
flexible horn, which gives them a spring, and having a barb on the inner
part of the point turning downward. Their fishhooks (_kakli=okio_)
consist only of a nail crooked and pointed at one end, the other being
let into a piece of ivory to which the line is attached. A piece of
deer's horn or curved bone only a foot long is used as a rod, and
completes this very rude part of their fishing-gear.
Of their mode of killing seals in the winter I have already spoken in
the course of the foregoing narrative, as far as we were enabled to make
ourselves acquainted with it. In their summer exploits on the water, the
killing of the whale is the most arduous undertaking which they have to
perform; and one cannot sufficiently admire the courage and activity
which, with gear apparently so inadequate, it must require to accomplish
this business. Okotook, who was at the killing of two whales in the
course of a single summer, and who described the whole of it quite _con
amore_, mentioned the names of thirteen men who, each in his canoe, had
assisted on one of these occasions.
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