Haida Weapons, 1890

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From The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia by Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

Weapons of War and of the Chase

Images from text, by Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

Weapons

The principal weapons before the advent of the whites were clubs of wood and stone, bows and arrows, spears with shell, bone, flint, copper, or jade tips, and, above all, the dagger, the constant companion of the Indian of this region.

Clubs

These were of wood, of stone, or of stone hafted with wood. The hafted stone clubs were simply industrial implements already described and used for the time being as weapons. A Tsimshian stone war-club is illustrated in Fig. 122 Plate XXVII. A Tlingit stone war-club in the Emmons Collection, New York, is shown in Fig. 119a. It is possible that the slave-killers, shown in Plate XLVI, were also carried as weapons, although no war-clubs of this type are now found in this region, Plate XXVII illustrates a variety of clubs used for different purposes.

Fig. 132 is a war-club pure and simple, the others being hunting or fishing implements and used to give the death-blow to seals, sea-otters, or fish after their capture by the different methods explained hereafter. These are all carved either with the totemic design of the owner or a representation of the animal itself. Each club is used distinctly for the purpose of dispatching the animal for which it was made. Figs. 128 and 129 are sea-otter clubs; Figs. 130 and 131 are seal clubs, The halibut and other fish clubs are similar in design. A type not here illustrated is a round wooden knob with straight handle.

Daggers

Dixon (1787) says of the Haida and Tlingit:

“Their weapons are spears fixed to a pole 6 or 8 feet long, and a kind of short dagger, which is worn in a leather case, and tied round the body; to this dagger a leather thong is fastened, at the end of which is a hole for the middle finger; the leather is afterwards twisted round the wrist in order to fix the dagger firm in the hand, so that the warrior loses his weapon only with his life.”

The handle is generally nearer one end than the other, giving a long blade and a short one. The leather sheath is usually strapped to the waist or hung about the neck, concealed beneath the blanket. The handle is small in diameter, wrapped with leather, and secured by a thong to the wrist when carried in the hand. The blades are flat and thicker down the middle than towards the edges, being generally grooved on each side of the center ridge. All varieties of patterns, however, are found, the different types being well represented in Plate XXV, of which Fig. 108 represents a primitive dagger of copper inlaid with haliotis shell, while Fig. 107 is the same type, of steel, with copper mountings.

Fig. 107d is a sheath of buckskin for the short blade of the dagger, and 107e the same for the long blade, the latter having, as shown, a strap to go about the neck. The dagger shown in Fig. 107 is from the Copper River Indians, but is clearly a Tlingit type, having undoubtedly reached that region in the course of trade.

Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

Fig. 106 shows a one-bladed dagger with a carved handle. Fig. 104, with its three details, a, b, and c, shows the method of securing the handle to the blade. Fig. 105 is a Tlingit chief’s dagger. The edges of all of them are rather dull and the points somewhat blunt, but the execution which these deadly weapons do is in the force with which they are driven into an adversary. The two primitive types of copper daggers seen by Dixon (1787) in this region are reproduced from sketches in his Voyage p. 188 in Plate xxvii, Figs. 116 and 117. Amongst the Aleut and Tinne to the north the type of dagger is that shown in Fig. 118, described also by Portlock (1787). This type is found in the Yukon region and well back into the interior. Fig. 116 is a slight modification in the type of 117, in the direction of 118.

Albert P. Niblack, 1890

The first daggers that were made of steel, after the advent of the whites, were converted by the natives from large flat files, which they also made into adze blades. The skillful manner in which the Indians ground down the files into beautifully fluted daggers challenged the admiration of the traders, who found the work as skillfully done as that by European metalworkers. The primitive dagger was of stone or bone. Those of bone were of the shape shown in Fig. 107, Plate XXV, with a sharp ridge running down the middle.

Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

Fig. 108b represents a Tlingit stone dagger from the Emmons Collection Fig. 108c from the same source, has a blade of stone and handle of wood covered in totemic design. Another dagger of jadeite or nephrite, not here represented, is a long prism of square cross-section pointed at each end, about three-fourths inch on a side, with the handle about one-third of the distance from one end. Fig. 108d is a steel dagger, also from this collection, of native workmanship. The edges are very sharp, and it is an exceedingly dangerous weapon. The handle is covered with plate copper, as shown. Fig. 108c is a Tlingit steel dagger also from the Emmons Collection.

The handle is wrapped with buckskin strips, and outside of all is wound a cord of plaited human hair. Fig. 108f is a Tlingit ivory guard for the point of a dagger to protect the wearer from danger of accidental stabbing, guard for fastening over the sharp edged point of a dagger. Both of these specimens are from the Emmons Collection, Fig. 108a is a steel bladed dagger with goat-horn handle.

Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

Bows and arrows

In the course of trade many of the Eskimo types of bows and arrows have found their way south amongst the Indians, particularly amongst the Yakutat and other northern Tlingit.

With the Eskimo and Aleut the bow and arrow is, equally with the harpoon, a weapon of the greatest importance, and a high type of each has been developed. The backing of sinew on the bow is occasionally found amongst the Tlingit, but not so skillfully applied as in the north (see Smithsonian Report, 1884, ‘‘A Study of the Eskimo Bows in the C. S. National Museum,” by Mr. John Murdoch). Amongst the Indians of the northwest coast the bow and arrow is and always has been only an auxiliary hunting implement, although a very important one, in the capture of sea-otter.

Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

To-day the bow and arrow survives only as a means of despatching wounded game to save powder and ball. The two types of coast Indian bows, the broad and narrow, are shown in Plate xxvi. The narrow type (Figs. 109, 110, and 115) is principally confined to the Tlingit, whereas the broader one (Figs. 111, 112, and 114) is found amongst not only the Tlingit, but the Haida and Tlingit as well. In Fig. 112 the peculiar groove down the inside of the bow is shown. The device in Fig. 115 to protect the thumb from the snap of the bow-string consists of a wooden bridge lashed to the inner side of the bow at the middle.

This is a willow bow of the type found in the interior amongst the Tinne, and either copied from their type or obtained by trade from them. Cedar and yew are the principal woods used by the coast Indians for bows, the strings being of hide or sinew. Few bows are now seen amongst these Indians except as toys for the children.

Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

Arrows

Before the introduction of iron, arrow-heads were of bone, flint, shell, or copper. The copper and later iron heads were of the shape shown in Fig. 133a or 134a, Plate XXIX, fitting into an ivory or bone fore-shaft, the shaft being of cedar. In some varieties the barbs are on one side only. Fig. 124, Plate XXVII, represents arrow Figs. 135 and 136, Plate XXIX, are bone spear-heads, but the same shape of smaller size are used for arrows. These bone or ivory fore shaft similar to the Eskimo arrows.

Fig. 126 represents an arrow with a head made of shell. The fore-shafts are of light cedar wood let into the larger shafts. In the Emmons Collection is a black flint arrow-head represented as coming from this region, the style of blunt-headed arrow is shown in Fig. 126. These are used for despatching wounded game. Fig. 126a shows bone arrow-head of this blunt pattern. The tenon at the butt fits a socket either in the bone fore-shaft or in the cedar shaft itself. Fig. 126b shows another kind, in which the shaft fits into the head itself, where it is secured by means of a tight lashing of twisted bark cord or sinew. Fig. 126c shows a third variety, in which a thin tongue or projection on the side of the bone arrow-head lets into a groove on the side of the shaft. Through holes pierced in this tongue and through the head of the arrow-shaft wires are run to attach the head to the shaft.

The general types of iron arrowheads are shown in Figs. 119, 120, 121, and 123, Plate XXVII, and 133a, 134a, and 138, Plate XXIX. The fore-shafts of 119 and 120 are of bone. Arrows with bone foreshafts, or bone or ivory sockets on the head of the arrow-shafts, and with detachable heads similar to those used by the Eskimo, are occasionally found amongst the Tlingit. The arrows of the are in general superior to those of the northern, and of the interior Indians to those on the coast.

Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

War spears

The primitive form was a simple wooden pole sharpened and hardened in the fire, or pointed with copper and later with iron.

Not many stone spear heads are found in this region. There is one in the Emmons Collection in New York, but how it was attached to the spear shaft does not appear. Marchand (1793) describes the war spear as consisting of two parts, a wooden shaft and an iron head, shaped like a Swiss halberd. Plate XVII. Fig. 64, shows a wooden ceremonial spear, doubtless an imitation of an ancient form of copper or stone headed spear. Fig. 113, Plate XXVI, is a Sitka war spear with carved handle or shaft and steel bayonet pointed head. In general the war spears have shafts from 10 to 14 feet long, whereas the hunting spears are much shorter.

Albert P. Niblack, 1890.

Fur-seal spear

This in general consists of a long, light cedar shaft and a detachable head. The shaft is of the primitive type with a socket in the upper end to receive the butt end of the detachable head. This latter was formerly made of bone but later and at present of iron or steel. (Plate XXIX, Figs. 133a, 134a, 135 and 136.) The steel ones are generally made by the Haida themselves from old flat files which they purchase from the traders. The end is sharply pointed, as shown in the figure while the edges and back are wrought into sharp barbs to hold in the flesh.

A loop of wire, or a shackle near the butt end, serves for the attachment of one end of a strong cord of plaited sinew, sea-weed or vegetable fibre, the other end being secured to a float or bladder. This spear is nothing more nor less than a harpoon.

The seal being struck the head detaches itself and the animal is thus secured to one end of a line. When not in use, the head is carried in a sheath made of two pieces of cedar wood in the shape of a fish’s tail, securely lashed together with bark or spruce root lashings. (Figs. 133b and 134b.) When about to be used, the sheath is removed and the detachable head fixed in the socket of the light cedar shaft.

Figs. 135 and 136 represent detachable spear heads of bone, with barbed edges. The cross sections c and d show that one is lenticular in shape and the other triangular. This type of spear head is not unlike that of the Eskimo and Aleut and is of very primitive design. Arrow-heads of this shape and description are common amongst the Eskimo but are rare in the coast Indian region. The fur-seal spears here described are virtually harpoons.

Albert P. Niblack. The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia. US National Museum. 1890.

Albert P. Niblack

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