This is a short line with sinker and fish shaped lure.

Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.

These ivory figurines may be high-status versions of the miniature clay examples that have been found in burial contexts throughout the Andean region of South America. The small and delicate male and female carvings are decorated with stone and shell inlays that suggest that they possibly functioned as treasured talismans or ritual offerings.


Estas figurillas de marfil pueden tratarse de versiones de alto rango de los ejemplos de miniaturas de barro que se han encontrado en contextos funerarios a través de la región Andina de Sudamérica. Los pequeños y delicados tallados masculino y femenino están decorados con incrustaciones de piedra y concha, sugiriendo que tuvieron una función como amuletos atesorados o como ofrendas rituales.

Gift of the Ernest Erickson Foundation, Inc.

Carll H. de Silver Fund

By exchange

By exchange

By exchange

By exchange

The toggle head is a seal poking through the ice at one end with an angled spur located at the other. The toggle types have a line hole near the midsection of the harpoon head.The toggle head is attached to a fore-shaft assembly which provides the weight to thrust the head through the mammal’s skin and blubber right down into the muscle. When the strike is good enough to get the harpoon head deep into the animal’s muscle, the fore-shaft assembly falls away. This toggle may have been used for seal hunting.