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Unknown artist

1916/07/13 or earlier

wood, animal bone, copper

Canadian Museum of History

A single arrow with a pointed tip and a shaft made of wood and bone, bound with copper wire near the tip. The Inuinnaq (Copper Inuit) were so named because of their use of nearly pure raw copper to make a variety of edged tools. During the brief arctic summer, the people dispersed in small groups of two or three families, wandering over the interior tundra plains to hunt caribou and fish. As camps were moved every few days, possessions were kept to an absolute minimum. Diamond Jenness spent the summer of 1915 living such a life with his hosts Ipakhuak and Higilak, on the rolling tundra of southwestern Victoria Island. Inuinnaq…