Chert Amulets from the Charles Miles Collection 

Miles, C. (1963). Ceremony and Religion. In Indian and Eskimo Artifacts of North
     American (p. 155). Bonanza Books.

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Profile showing the curvature and thinness of the flake.

 This piece was not cut from a slab.

It is made from a spall. Click on picture for a closer view

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The use of amulets in hunting magic is common among the Inuit across the entire North American Arctic both ethnographically and archaeologically. Although amulets functioned in a wide variety of contexts, they were often used to attract the animal to the hunter, to appease the animal so that it would allow itself to be killed, and to return the animal's "shade" or spirit back to the land or sea. Compulsion, propitiation and reproduction were thus the main elements of hunting magic. Among the Inuit, hunting was much more than a secular economic activity; it was intimately interwoven with their animistic religion.

Amulets generally represent the desired game animal and were often rendered in bone, antler, wood or, most commonly, ivory. Less well known are the chipped stone amulets in a variety of cryptocrystalline materials. Murdoch (1892:399, 435) mentions that he collected six of these at Point Barrow, Alaska. Four of these specimens are naturalistic representations of whales and were chipped from colorless glass, quartz crystal, smoky quartz, and red jasper. A fifth specimen probably also represents a whale but is much more abstractly conceived. Murdoch states that "it is precisely the shape of a skin scraper, except for the roughly indicated flukes (p.435)." He also notes that "the flint whale is a very common amulet intended to give good luck in whaling, and is worn habitually by many of the men and boys under the clothes, suspended around the neck by a string. The captain and harpooner of a whaling crew also wear them as pendants on fillets (head bands) ... , and on the breast of the jacket (p. 435)." A sixth piece is of dark gray chert which Murdoch identifies as a polar bear with a disproportionately long tail.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and interpret, whenever possible, a series of thirty seven chipped stone amulets now in the possession of the University of Pennsylvania Museum. These pieces were collected by E.A. McIlhenny between 1897-1899 at Point Barrow and by W.E. Van Valin (1944) in the years 1917-1919 in conjunction with work conducted for the University Museum. This work included both the collection of ethnographic materials and the excavation of archaeological sites. While the archaeological materials recovered by Van Valin have been summarized by J. Alden Mason (1930) and James A. Ford (1959), to my knowledge none of the ethnographic materials from either collection have been reported.

 Of the thirty seven amulets in this collection, eighteen are definite or probable whales, and six are adult bears. Also included are two foxes, a probable bear cub, two human figures, two quartz crystals, a bird (?), a boot (?), a seal head (?), a jumping seal, a fish (?), and a possible mythical figure (Table 1). This formal distribution reflects the overwhelming importance of whale hunting in the subsistence economy and social organization of Point Barrow, and the significance attached to the bear in mythology and shamanistic rituals. All of these amulets are chipped from a variety of cryptocrystalline rocks with the exception of a single steatite whale effigy.

Bears. Two species of bears are present in the Point Barrow region, the Barren Ground grizzly and the polar bear. Although neither is an important subsistence resource, polar bear meat is a particular favorite (Spencer 1959:32). The grizzly bear spirit is considered extremely powerful and allied with shamans particularly in curing activities. A number of taboos also surround the killing, butchering and consumption of the grizzly (p. 271). Polar bears are considered both physically and spiritually weaker primarily because the bear's spirit could not be transferred to humans.

  Plate1:A, G illustrates two laterally-viewed chert bears of indeterminate species. The front legs are not broken in either specimen as there is evidence of more than one flake scar on the edge, but they stand in marked contrast to the well-defined rear legs and paws. Both amulets are bifacially knapped over their entire surface although the chipping is quite crude on amulet l:A compared to other specimens. Amulets B and C are both bifacially flaked gray chert bears. The distinct hump on the back of B suggests a grizzly bear while the blunt ears and smooth back of C may indicate a polar bear.

The red jasper amulet F may also be a polar bear since it lacks a dorsal hump.

Plate1:D represents an animal with short, rounded head and legs and a relatively squat torso, suggesting a bear cub. There is sporadic grinding on the thickest areas and a black resinous material adhering.

Spencer (1959:339-40) notes that amulet boxes owned by whaling captains were marked with lamp soot and grease, a mark for each whale taken. This mixture evidently had some magical or symbolic value as both the whaling captain and harpooner also wore a mixture of soot and grease on their faces signifying the number of whales taken in previous seasons. Thus, it is not unlikely that amulets may have been deliberately smeared with this mixture to enhance their effectiveness. Note that five other amulets in this collection also retain this mixture of soot and grease.

The final bear, amulet G, of gray chert and red jasper is particularly interesting since the erect ears and tilted-down head give the appearance of a bear fishing or hunting ground squirrels.