The toggling harpoon head is an Inuit invention that dates back over a thousand years.  While all other harpoon heads have barbs to hold fast in an animal’s flesh, the toggling harpoon head is unique in its retention system. Upon entering the body of a seal, walrus, or whale the harpoon head remains as the harpoon shaft detaches and is pulled back to the hunter. Meanwhile, the line attached to a hole in the center of the harpoon head is pulled taut and the head swivels in the flesh and forms a T-shaped anchor that cannot be withdrawn. The line is either connected to inflated sealskin floats when kayaks are used in the hunt, or is engaged by hunters on land in a tug-of-war with the struggling sea mammal.  Bone with copper-pinned iron point 5 ¾”

Illustration by Frederic Back from the book INUIT, Glimpses of an Arctic Past by the Canadian Museum of Civilization

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