LIKE THOSE OF THE ESKIMOS.
347
Blairdrummond and Meiklewood, but in this he was in error. There are some fine specimens from Shetland in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen. Mr. J. W. Cursiter, of Kirkwall, has fine examples of such knives from Shetland. One in his collection is 8 inches long and 534 inches broad, being in form much like Fig. 262.
Fig. 263.—Walls, Shetland. 12
There can be little doubt of these implements having been cutting tools for holding in the hand, though they have been described by Dr. Hibbert and Mr. Bryden[1] in "The Statistical Account of the Shetland Isles" as double or single-edged battle-axes. They appear, however, as Mr. Albert Way[2] has pointed out, to be too thin and fragile for any warlike purpose. Those with the cutting edge all round were probably provided with a sort of handle along one side, like the flensing-knife from Icy Cape in the possession of Sir Edward Belcher, of which mention has already been made. This is a flat thin blade, about 5 inches long, and of subquadrangular form. It is sharp at the edge, but has a guard or handle along the opposite side, made of split twigs attached by resinous gum. In some Eskimo knives of the same kind in the Christy Collection and in the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen the
- ↑ "Statist. Account of Zetland," 1841, p. 112, et seqq., quoted at length in Mem. Anthrop. Soc. Lond., vol. ii. p. 315. The late Dr. Hunt appears to have thought that the passage referred to rude pestle-like stone implements such as he found in Orkney, and not to these knives.
- ↑ "Cat. Arch. Inst. Mus. Ed.," p. 7.
