Bow Drill Spindle Item Number: E7467-0 from the National Museum of Natural History

Notes

This object is listed, but not described or analyzed, in Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/94 , retrieved 1-31-2020. General information on drills is available here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/20: The bow drills in the MacFarlane Collection were used for boring holes into wood, antler, bone and ivory. The drill spindle (shaft) has a bit at one end, and the other end is shaped to fit into a bearing that is held between the teeth. The spindle is rotated by wrapping a slack thong attached at each end of a drill bow around it, and moving the bow back and forth. Ancestral Inuvialuit also used another type of bow drill for starting fires.