Toggling Harpoon Head

A toggling harpoon head is a detachable point of bone, antler or walrus ivory, tied to a line through a hole bored through its body. It is driven fully into the animal; when the line pulls tight, spurs at the rear catch in the flesh and the head turns about 90 degrees under the skin, lying crosswise to the line like a T (Hodge 1907; Jolicoeur 2021, citing Park 2010). A socket in the butt takes the loose foreshaft, and the tip is either a separate endblade set in a slot or carved in one piece with the body (Hodge 1907; Jolicoeur 2021).

Thule heads have an open socket closed by sinew lashed through gouged slots in earlier forms and drilled holes in later ones; endblades were first wedged between converging prongs and later riveted, (Whitridge 2016). Dorset heads with one line hole predate Late Dorset, while Type G heads with two line holes belong only to Late Dorset (Jolicoeur 2021).

At a seal's breathing hole the head toggled beneath the skin and held the animal while the hunter cut away the ice (Whitridge 2016). The key trait is a line hole through the body and a socketed butt with rear spurs, so that the head turns crosswise in the wound.

Arctic North America from Alaska to Greenland, with Dorset sites reaching Labrador and Newfoundland (Hodge 1907; Whitridge 2016; Jolicoeur 2021; Parks Canada). Bone harpoons in general also occur in the St. Lawrence basin, northern New England and New York (Moorehead 1910).

Look for the line hole through the body and the socket in the butt. A barbed, non-toggling harpoon head is tied by its tang or butt and has no line hole through the middle of the body (Hodge 1907); a fish spear or leister prong is fixed to its shaft (Moorehead 1910). Mathiassen's 1927 Thule types (Natchuk, Sicco, Thule 1–5, Clachan, Nuwuk) are still in use; Thule 5 resembles Dorset Parallel but has a round rather than flat foreshaft socket (Whitridge 2016). Robust Dorset Parallel heads with a transverse line hole are often read as walrus harpoons (Jolicoeur 2021). Dorset hunters at Phillip's Garden, Port au Choix, used harpoon heads with small triangular endblades to take harp seals (Parks Canada).