OLD BERING SEA CULTURE

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The harpoon has been an essential survival tool for peoples living on both coasts of the Bering Sea for many centuries. Used to hunt large sea game, harpoons were continually developed over countless generations. Around 1500 bc, this engineering process produced the toggling harpoon, which represented a powerful technological innovation for the kayak-borne hunters. Its blade was attached to a small foreshaft that was detachable, designed to separate from the main shaft of the harpoon once it struck the prey. With a length of strong cord connected to the foreshaft, the hunter was able to restrain and tow the animal to shore.

In addition to the toggling head, harpoon makers also designed counterweights that were fitted at the opposite end of the shaft, balancing the harpoon and increasing its efficacy. Counterweights are sometimes referred to as ‘winged objects’ due to their typical shape, which suggests the silhouette of an abstract bird in flight.

After mastering the function of these harpoons, Arctic artisans began to embellish their forms. Components of toggling harpoons were often carved from walrus ivory and were decorated with elegant and abstract incisions. These items commonly depicted animal spirits and other metaphysical allies that attracted game and empowered the harpoon. By the first half of the first millennium ce, the incised patterns had grown quite sophisticated, often weaving oblique, subtle, and multifaceted images that invite thoughtful interpretation.

The dense and polyiconic surface designs for which Arctic counterweights are known are on full show in this beautiful example. From end to end, the form is covered with a rich embellishment of incisions, segmented into panels that seem to flow and fold into one another. The confident finesse of the design and its sensitive line weights suggest the hand of a master carver. A host of half-seen faces or spirit visages peek out at the viewer from the beautifully aged and parchment-colored surface, hinting at inscrutable metaphors. On the reverse side the designs are continued in the central socket piece, also symmetrically carved and presenting another quasi-biological form that seems to merge intimations of the physical and spiritual.

There are other extant examples of early Old Bering Sea counterweights but this example, with its exceptional carving and beautiful coloring is amongst the finest known examples still in private hands.

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