Tikchik village: a nineteenth century riverine community in ... - Cluster

274 FIELDIANA: ANTHROPOLOGY, VOLUME 56would cover and thus how many sinkers he would need for the entirenet. The two notched specimens are 17.5 cm, and 14.5 cm. in lengthrespectively and are both less than 1.5 cm. in width. This, togetherwith the length of the interval between the notches, suggests theiruse with light nets of small mesh, perhaps nets that would have beenset for whitefish in small creeks and lakes near the village.The seven lure-hooks, only two of which are complete, have antlershanks in a stylized fish shape with drilled holes at the distal end toreceive a metal hook. On three specimens the barb, a bent nail, isin place (PL 4,8,ll). The proximal ends of five specimens are complete,the three longest of these having a small drilled hole for suspensionthat runs parallel to the hole for the barb. The two smallestspecimens, on the other hand, have their suspension holes at rightangles to the barb hole (PI. 4,io). It is probable that the largerlure-hooks were used for winter fishing through the river ice for pikewhile the smaller ones would have been similarly used for grayling.Three of the four salmon harpoon socket pieces, all of bone, havepronounced shoulders and conical tangs of varying degrees of irregularity(PL 4,3-4). The largest specimen has a small rivet hole atthe tip of the tang. All three are drilled at the distal end to receivethe dart head. The fourth socket piece, made of antler, is too fragmentaryto determine its shape but a wedge-shaped tang is suggested.The four fishing ice picks are all of antler and range in length from10.5 to 20 cm. They are made from the split half of an antler tipand are carefully flattened on one side to form a smooth contact witha wooden shaft (PL 4,5). Such picks would have been used to openholes in the ice for hook fishing or for the setting of nets and traps.There are six salmon harpoon dart heads of antler in the collection,four of which are complete but poorly preserved. All are asymetricallybarbed and three have sloping shoulders and conical tangs(PL 4,7), while the fourth has a sharp shoulder with a conicaltang (PL 4,6). All line holes are in the center, three being gougedand the fourth drilled and round. The two basal fragments are frommuch larger heads. They have centrally placed, round, drilled lineholes and sloping shoulders with wedge-shaped tangs (PL 4,i5).Side prongs for fish spears are of two types. Simple leister prongs,of which there are two antler examples, are asymmetrically barbedand have pointed tangs (PL 4,9). Both are very poorly preservedand small enough to have been used with fish arrows. The secondtype consists of a strip of antler with a large barb at the end (PL 4,16-17). There are four of these and although none is complete, it