Point Barrow, Alaska, United States, North America
Accession Date:
23 Nov 1883
Notes:
This object is on loan to the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center, from 2010 through 2027.
From card: "Illus. in BAE 9th AR, fig. 348, p. 342. Loan: Crossroads Sep 22 1988. Illus.: Crossroads of Continents catalogue; Fig. 210, p. 168."
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=186 , retrieved 12-15-2021; see web page for additional information: Harpoon rest, Inupiaq. Images of bowhead whales cover this ivory rest where a harpooner propped his weapons. Tails of diving whales are etched in front and whale heads are carved on the prongs. On the back of each whale is an "X" with a blue bead to mark its first vertebra - the center of its life force. Some Inupiaq whalers still use the skin-covered umiaq boat for whaling but bomb darts and shoulder guns long ago replaced stone-tipped harpoons and lances and harpoon rests are no longer used. Harpoon rests, often shaped from two pieces of walrus ivory, were placed in the bow of an umiaq [open skin boat] to hold the heavy harpoon used for whaling. Sometimes the harpooner would also rest his stone-tipped killing lance there. Inupiaq whalers at Barrow, Wainright, and Point Hope still use the wood-framed umiaq covered with bearded seal skins, but other equipment has changed. Bomb darts and shoulder guns long ago replaced harpoons and lances (starting in about the 1880s), and the traditional harpoon rests are no longer used. The two prongs of this 1883 piece from Barrow are carved in the shape of bowhead whales, which hunters seek in open water leads on the frozen ocean. Each whale has an X on its back, with a small blue bead in the center. Tail flukes of diving bowheads are engraved on the front. Sinew loops on both sides were for lashing the harpoon rest to the gunwales of the umiaq, inside the V of the bow; the designs faced inward, toward the harpooner and other men of the crew. Older harpoon rests were sometimes made from split walrus jaws.
