The toggling harpoon is an ancient

weapon A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...

and

tool A tool is an object that can extend an individual's ability to modify features of the surrounding environment or help them accomplish a particular task. Although many animals use simple tools, only human beings, whose use of stone tools dates b ...

used in

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industr ...

to impale a

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

when thrown. Unlike earlier

harpoon A harpoon is a long spear-like instrument and tool used in fishing, whaling, sealing, and other marine hunting to catch and injure large fish or marine mammals such as seals and whales. It accomplishes this task by impaling the target ani ...

versions which had only one point, a toggling harpoon has a two-part point. One half of the point is firmly attached to the thrusting base, while the other half of the point is fitted over this first point like a cap and attached to the rest of the point with sinew or another string-like material. When the harpoon is thrust into an animal, the top half of the point detaches and twists horizontally into the animal under the skin, allowing hunters to haul the animal to ship or shore. This harpoon technology lodges the toggling head of the harpoon underneath both the animal's skin and blubber, and instead lodges the point in the muscle, which also prevents the harpoon slipping out.

History

Toggling harpoons are first associated with the Red Paint culture of

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...

and

Atlantic Canada Atlantic Canada, also called the Atlantic provinces (french: provinces de l'Atlantique), is the region of Eastern Canada comprising the provinces located on the Atlantic coast, excluding Quebec. The four provinces are New Brunswick, Newfoundla ...

(c. 5500 BC to c. 4000 BC). The earliest known toggling harpoon head was found at a 7000-year-old Red Paint burial site in Labrador, at the L'Anse Amour Site. They were probably used to harvest swordfish and seals, the bones of which have been found at Red Paint sites.Lecture Notes Week Four: Anthropology 3291
retrieved on July 1, 2010 Toggling harpoon technology was later used by the

Thule Thule ( grc-gre, Θούλη, Thoúlē; la, Thūlē) is the most northerly location mentioned in ancient Greek and Roman literature and cartography. Modern interpretations have included Orkney, Shetland, northern Scotland, the island of Saar ...

tradition (c. 700 BC to present) of the Western

Arctic The Arctic ( or ) is a polar regions of Earth, polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenla ...

, in the Bering Strait area and further south along either

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n or

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U ...

n coasts. The toggling harpoon was part of a hunting technology that focused intensely on the sea, and it improved life in the Arctic by providing eased subsistence to the sea-mammal hunters living there. The grommet iron, a form of toggle harpoon with an

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

head, was used in some

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an boats at least by 1772. The pivoting head and the shaft of this harpoon were held parallel by means of a

grommet Curtain grommets, used among others in shower curtains. A grommet is a ring or edge strip inserted into a hole through thin material, typically a sheet of textile fabric, sheet metal or composite of carbon fiber, wood or honeycomb. Grommets ar ...

banded around them. The grommet slid off when the iron penetrated the whale (or fish), allowing the head to toggle open as the barb caught in the tissue. In 1848

Lewis Temple Lewis Temple (22 October 1800 – 18 May 1854) was an American " negro whalecraft maker,"Spence p. 114, 115 blacksmith, abolitionist, and inventor. He was born in slavery in Richmond, Virginia, and moved to the whaling village of New Bedford, ...

, an African-American

blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel, but sometimes from other metals, by forging the metal, using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, gr ...

New Bedford, Massachusetts New Bedford (Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast region. Up through the 17th century, the area was the territory of the Wampanoag Native American p ...

, adapted the toggling harpoon using a wooden shear pin to initially brace the toggle head, and created what came to be known as ''Temple's Toggle'' and later simply as the ''toggle iron'' or ''iron toggle'' harpoon. This harpoon became a whaling standard and replaced the fixed-point " two flue" and " single flue" harpoons that were widely used previously.

A symbol

This harpoon became so important to the industry that its shape continues to symbolize whaling in the modern day. A statue of a whaler hefting a toggling harpoon in

has come to act as a symbol for the city itself.

References

*Fagan, Brian. ''Ancient North America''. Thames & Hudson, London. 2005, p. 194.

External links

Toggle irons history
Harpoons Ancient weapons Inuit tools