Bone and horn harpoon heads of the Ontario Indians.

I ntroductory.The fish-spear, or harpoon, was extensively used by many of the aboriginal inhabitants of North America.The first European colonists were astonished to see the abundance of fish in the rivers and lakes, and they found that the natives captured them in various ways with hook and line, nets, weirs and harpoons.In the accounts given by these early colonists and travellers, we find numerous references to the use of the latter implement.Captain John Smith said : "They of Accawmack use staves like unto javelins, headed with bone; with these they dart fish swimming in the water" (p. 36).In his "Account of Two Voyages to New England," John Josselyn gave a very similar description : "The Bass and Bleu-fish they take in har- bours and at the mouth of barr'd Rivers being in their Canows, strik- ing them with a fisgig, a kind of dart or staff, to the lower end whereof they fasten a sharp jagged bone (since they make them of Iron* with a string fastened to it, as soon as the fish is struck they pull away the staff, leaving the bony head in the fishes body, and fasten the other end of the string to the Canow.Thus they will hale after them to shore half a dozen or half a score great fishes" (p.140).According to Roger Williams, "The Natives venture one or two in a Canow, and with an harping Iron, or such like Instrument, sticke this fish, and so hale it into their Canow" (p.102).Loskiel, in speaking of the Delawarcs and Iroquois, said : "The Indians always carry hooks and small harpoons with them whenever they are on a hunting party" (Tart I., p. 94).The Montagnais, we are informed by Sag- ard (p.GS5), captured fish in two ways -"with a wicker basket or with a harpoon during night by the light of fire."The sturgeon harpoon of the Iroquois, as described by Charlevoix (p.ST) was secured to the canoe by a long cord.Le Jeune* describes the harpoon for spearing eels as "an instrument consisting of a long stick, of the thickness of three fingers, to the end of which they fasten an iron spike, which 'Relation de ce qvi.s'est passe en la Novvella France svr le grand Flevve de S. Lavrens en l'annee, 1634; Relation des Jesuites, etc. Vol.I. p. II [1] 1 C. they arm on each side with a curved prong, both coming nearly together at the end of the iron point.*'In striking an eel with this *An Eskimo specimen in our Museum is very much like the harpoon here described.It consists of a wooden shaft, about two feet long, pointed with an iron spike, on each side of which there are two thin flexible pieces of bone, armed with iron prongs.These prongs curve downwards, their points almost meeting and coming close to the point of the iron spike.Dr. Boas in his "Central Eskimo" (6th Ann.Rep. Bureau of Ethnology) figures two very similar specimens (fig. 453 a,a,b).

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