Spear or Harpoon Point
This uniquely carved bone point is one of my artistic favourites (Figure 1). It is missing its proximal end, which makes it difficult to tell if it was a spear or harpoon point. It is also difficult without knowing how in was attached, if directly, or via a fore shaft, to other parts of the shaft as seen in figure 4. The bone point was found during a joint archaeological recovery project, with volunteers from the Royal B.C. Museum and Sidney Museum. I was in charge of this project, which was the first in British Columbia to use a large power conveyor belt separator. The point is show here in figure 1, in a lighter tone to make the design pattern clearer. Figure 2 shows its natural colour and the reverse side that has no carved design.
The antler point was spotted flowing down the side of a large pile of fine material flowing down from a conveyor belt by Jim Pike, then of the Archaeology branch. The material being separated was a mixture of ancient midden site material and more resent historic debris that was illegally removed from archaeological site DeRu-1, located along Blue Heron Lagoon in North Sidney, on Vancouver Island.
The carved image is what I am calling Shark Man, It appears to be a cross between a human and a shark. It clearly shows the arms and hands with five fingers and the legs of a human body with the head of a shark. The back of the shark’s head forms the barb of the spear. It has six ribs and a curved mark that likely represents a hip area separation. There are six thicker rib-like forms along the lower upper part of the back.
Dating the Bone Point
The material from this site was not systematically excavated, ruining the ability to understand the specific context of the spear point and its age. Although the artifact itself, being organic material, may be dated someday. However, the site from which it came has had proper systematic archaeological excavations that have been dated (Dady 2002). This site, DeRu-1, called the Blue Heron Lagoon site, dates from 4000 to 3500 in the lower levels, where it is most likely this projectile point came from.
Other carved antler points from the same site, seen in figure 3, are also most likely from the early Stratigraphic component. This kind of stylistic carving has not been found in sites dating within the last 1750 years. The top one, DeRu-1:2487, appears to be a heron-like bird with a barbed bill.
Figure 4, is from the Eburne site on the Lower Fraser River that has an early dating component. All figures are missing barbs on the distal end, These have harpoons coming out of their mouths.
An antler point that has an interesting similarity is found in at the Lopatka 1 cultural stratum of the Andrianovka site on Cape Lopatka on southern Kamchatka. It dates to 2,200 +or – 100 (MAG-313) (Dikova 1983:221). My figure 5, shows a copy of Dikova’s photograph which is more accurate than the over-stylized version in both Dikova (1983) and in the same collection material later studied by Takase, and Lebedintsev (2019). The people of this culture also wore labrets similar to those found before 1800 years ago on the southern coast of British Columbia.
Figure 6. shows both spears and harpoons. On top is an ethnographic example of a Fuegian harpoon used by the Alikulufan and Yahgan on the Straits of Magellan. They focus on marine resources like those of Indigenous peoples on the coast of British Columbia.
As Mason points out: “In the Fugian barbed harpoons the transition from a spear is immediate, for it is only a mater of a short piece of sinew string or leather thong united the head with the shaft. If the barbed head of bone be firmly fixed in the split end of the shaft, the implement is a spear; if the barbed head fix loosely by its butt into a socket or what is really the case, into the riven end of the shaft, and is joined to the shaft by a short cord or thong … the implement is the most primitive of harpoons,” (Mason 1902).
Figure 6 shows at the top, a Fuegian harpoon with a tie through a hole in single barbed point. Below this are examples of Californian fixed points that may or may not have had a line attached to a fore shaft rather than the point. If this was the case they would be harpoons but of a different type where the line was attached to the fore shaft rather than the point.
Sharks in Indigenous Tradition
Sharks are cartilaginous, without preserved bones it is difficult to determine their importance in the Indigenous economy of the distant past. Based on historic information sharks must have been a more important food source than is generally recognized in the literature.
Sharks are seldom mentioned in Indigenous stories or found represented on cultural images. Figure 7 shows an exception in a text written by Tlingit ethnologist, Louis Situwuka Shortridge (April 15, 1883 – August 6, 1937). He notes that this Kaguanton Tlingit, Clan helmet representing a shark is:
“a very unique and ancient specimen and so far as is know, the only one of its kind which existed in the Land of the Tlingit. The helmet is made of the thickest part of the hide of the walrus, evidently shrunken, by a heating process, around a wooden form after the two pieces had been sewed together; it was then carved after it had thoroughly dried. The projecting parts, such as the lips of the shark and the eyes of the figure on the back of the helmet, are forced out and carved in relief, leaving the original surface of the hide; this surface was carved away from the part we recognize as the face of the fish. The hide is about one-half of an inch thick where the deep carving is executed.” (Shortridge 1929).
Indigenous Shark Power
“Shark is the highest tamanoas that can be obtained; a person who obtains him as guardian spirit can cure any kind of illness”
Shark Story
One interesting story stresses the importance of sharks as a special spirit power. The quote above was provided by the Lower Chehalis or Tsihalis people of Greys Harbour, Washington (a language belonging to the Salish language family). Thelma Adamson recorded it in the story of Thunder. In the long story, the five Thunder brothers were chased by “dangerous being”. The surviving brother, who married the daughter of a Thunder, stole a rolling loop that made light where it rolled. He stole it while it was being played by the Tamanoas people who chased him. They chased Thunder with torches at night but his relative Thunders put out the torches with urine. The last torch being carried and put out was owned by the Tamanous Shark (Adamson 1934:323).
A historic account of shark as a spirit power and an example of a physical shark object, appeared in the Colonist newspaper in 1891:
“A shark Story. In a cargo to be shipped to Alaska by Mexico to-day is a curious monument for the grave of a Sitka Indian named Carl Nakatla, who died some months ago. It is a plain tablet of white marble, with a fierce looking shark cut upon its face. The shark is the totem of the family to which Carl belongs.” (Colonist 1891).
Sharks on Pictographs
Sharks are represented on several Indigenous pictographs. However, none of these have stories associated with them. Figure 8, shows examples drawn by John Smyly from cluster of pictographs at Walsh Cove on Waddington Channel.
Shark Names and Uses
Indigenous names of individual species of sharks are rare. They were either not known or not recorded. Squamish band member, Louis Maranda, Sxaa1txw, gave the names kw’ach’ákalh and kw’ach’á yenkwu in reference to the sixgill shark (Hexanchus griseus), but suggested the terms could refer to any shark and that the name derived from “dogfish”. The name of the spiny dogfish (Squalus acanthias) was given askw’aach’. Maranda noted that sharks were not caught by the Squamish, who believed that people had been swallowed by large “shark-like” fish. (Bouchard and Kennedy 1976:1).
The Cowichan provided several names for the sixgill shark or “mud shark” as it is commonly called. “It was speared by the Cowichan people in open salt water areas. It was apparently a very difficult fish to catch. The two or three-pronged spear was used by the Cowichans in the Satellite Channel area, at the south end of Saltspring Island. The flesh of sharks was not eaten, but the large liver was rendered for its oil” (Rozen 1979).
Historic Commentary on Sharks
Mud sharks were an important part of the historic oil rendering industry, in which Indigenous people played an important role. Blue nosed six gilled sharks were hunted in the 20th century for skin and vitamin A from their livers. This commercial fishery was terminated in the early 1990s and is now only present as incidental bycatch. Spiny dogfish have been part of a commercial fishery since the 1800s and continue in some form today.
Larger sharks were more common along the coast in the late 19 and early 20th century. They were observed in Victoria’s inner harbour. The Daily Colonist, on October 29, 1882, reported: “A monster shark. A voracious looking shark …was caught in the harbour yesterday morning and hauled ashore at Sayward’s mills. It measured 9’ 7” in length and weighed 529lbs”. Another 9-foot shark was observed and shot at Esquimalt in 1881 (Colonist 1881).
Newspaper accounts mention shoals of sharks around halibut fishing grounds. An example of this was in 1890, when the schooner Lady George was bumped around by a group of a dozen large sharks over the halibut fishing area off Cape Flattery (Colonist 1890). An example of a large shark catching a large cod was observed in 1876:
“From Bayne Sound” “…on the way down Mr. Urquhart witnessed a fight between a large codfish and an immense shark. Mr. Urquhart succeeded in getting hold of the codfish by the tail, while his sharkship [lordship] had the cod by the head, but a few well directed blows from a paddle mused the monster to let go his hold. The codfish had showed fight, for the shark was bleeding in several places. The codfish was brought down to Nanaimo and was seen by several persons yesterday. The shark was at least 20 feet long.” (Colonist 1876).
The Basking Shark (Cetorhinus maximus), was the subject of an intense government-sponsored eradication program from the late 1940s to the 1970s because they were considered a “pest” that damaged salmon gillnets. The population was severely reduced, but is now listed as endangered under the federal Species at Risk Act (Cosewic 2007).
References
Adamson, Thelma. Thunder. 1934. In: Folk Tales of the Coast Salish. Collected and Edited by Thelma Adamson. Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, Vo. XXVII, Published by the American Folk-Lore Society, G.E. Stechert and Co., New York, Pp. 315-324.
Bouchard and Kennedy 1976. Utilization of Fish, Beach foods, and Marine Mammals by the Squamish Indian People of British Columbia, British Columbia Indian Language Project.
Colonist 1891. A Shark Story. The Daily Colonist. October 16, 1891, p.5.
Colonist 1876. From Baynes Sound. The Daily Colonist. November 2, 1876 p.3.
Colonist. 1881. A Monster at Esquimalt. The Daily British Colonist. September 29, p.3.
Cosewic 2007. Assessment and Status Report on the basking shark. Pacific population in Canada. Canadian Wildlife Service Environment Canada.
Dady, Pete, 2002. Archaeological Investigations at DeRu-001: 1992 Work at 10661 Blue Heron Road. Permit Report 1992-26. On file, Archaeology Branch, Victoria. B.C.
Dikova, Tamara M. 1983. Archaeology of Southern Kamchatka in Connection with the Issue of Ainu Occupation. (Arkheologiya Yuzhnoi Kamchatki v Svyazi Problemoi Raseleniya Ainov), Moscow, Nauka. (In Russian).
Mason, Otis Tufton. 1902. Aboriginal American Harpoons: A Study in Ethnographic Distribution and Invention. Smithsonian Institution. United Sates National Museum. From the Report of the United Sates National Museum for 1900:189-304. Wahington, Government Printing House.
Rozen, David L. 1978. ‘l’he Ethnozoology of the Cowichan Indian People of British Columbia. Volime I. FISH, BEACH FOODS, and Marine Animals.
Smith, Harlan Ingersoll,1903. Shell-Heaps of the Lower Fraser River, British Columbia. Memoir of the American Museum of Natural History. Vol. II. Part IV. In: The Jesup North Pacific Expedition. (Edited by Franz Boas), AMS Press, New York.
Shortridge, Louis. 1929. The Kaguanton Shark Helmet. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Museum Journal Volume XXI. Number 3-4.
Takase, Katsunori and Aleksander I, Lebedintsev. 2019. Illustrated Catalogue of Archaeological Materials from Kamchatka in T. M. Dikova Collection. FEB RAS, Magadan, Russia. Archaeology Laboratory, Graduate School of Letters, Hokkaido University, Japan. The North-Eastern Interdisciplinary Scientific Research Institute, FEB RAS, Russia, Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences.
