It is curious that among the same people such different forms of harpoon-points should be found, from the most primitive to more ingenious ones. This may tend to show that their sealing culture was not so old as to have acquired fixed and definite forms like that of the Eskimo.
It is remarkable that by far the greater number of harpoon-points were made entirely of reindeer-horn, without any iron tip. Only on two of them (see Fig. 2, p. 214) are there marks of such a tip, which was let in round the fore-end, but which has rusted completely away. There is nowhere a sign of the use of any blade of iron (or stone), such as is used by the Eskimo. All these harpoon-points were made fast to a thong by deep notches at the base, or by a hole; and they have either a tang at the base which was stuck into a hole in the end of the harpoon-shaft, or else they have a hole or a groove at the base, which was surrounded by an iron ring, and into which a tang at the end of the shaft was inserted. As no piece of reindeer-horn or bone has been found which might serve as a tang for fixing the harpoon-points, it is possible that these were fastened directly on to the wooden shaft. With the help of the thong, which was probably made tightly fast (on a catch ?) to the upper part of the shaft, the point was held in its place. But when the harpoon was cast into the animal, the point remained fixed in its flesh and came away from the shaft, which became loose, and the animal was caught by the thong, the end of which was either made fast to the boat or held by the hunter; for it is improbable that it was made fast to a buoy or bladder, which is an invention peculiar to the Eskimo. All the harpoons found at Kjelmö are remarkably small, and cannot have been used for any animal larger than a seal. Among the objects found there is only one piece cut off a walrus-tusk, and none of the implements were made of this material, except, perhaps, one arrow-head. The explanation of this cannot be merely that the walrus was not common in the neighbourhood of Kjelmö; it shows rather that these Finns did not practise walrus-hunting at all; for if they had done so, we should expect their weapons and implements to be made to a large extent of walrus-tusk, which has advantages over reindeer-horn.