Harpoon Head

Item number A9096 from the MOA: University of British Columbia.

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Description

Large flat leaf-shaped iron blade. Fixed to the blade with compresses of spruce resin are two antler spurs (elk ?) incised with designs of wolf and snake. Also attached, there is a heavy lanyard of twisted sinew (whale or sea-lion) (used to attach head to long line). Engraved with lightning serpent imagery.

History Of Use

The Nuu-chah-nulth and Makah are the only Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples to have hunted the great humpback and gray whales, performing these feats from canoes on the open Pacific Ocean. This detachable harpoon head was designed to dislodge on impact from the shaft of the whaling harpoon, its metal blade (in earlier times, made of sharpened mussel shell) separating from the antler spurs as body heat from the captured whale softened the glue-like resin. Rigorous training, preparatory rituals and specialized equipment- including yew-wood harpoons, sinew lanyards, sealskin floats, cedar-bark lines- were critical to the success of the whaler and his crew.

Iconographic Meaning

Incised on the spurs, and visible to spirit beings under the sea and beyond the horizon (and to those who look closely), are depictions of hiʔitl’i:k, or lightning serpents—supernatural helpers of the greatest whaler of all, the Thunderbird.