This item is a long Inuit or Eskimo Bird Dart or Spear made out of a spliced Cedar shaft and with a multi pronged ivory spear tip. In order for the shaft to be of the desired length, it was made out of two straight Cedar rods, spliced mid section with a shallow taper on both shaft segments and wrapped tightly with cordage. There are several faint red pigment rings on the shaft. The shaft is 11+ mm in diameter and the surface has fine longitudinal scrap marks. The ivory spear tip was made out of 5 pieces of ivory. There is a short center piece that extends 5 cm from the end of the wooden shaft. This center piece is barbed on two sides. There are four longer barbed segments that are barbed on the inner surface on one side and each of these points have a length of 16+ cm and they are separated by 90 degrees to yield a uniform circumferential spacing. The barbs are tied tightly at the base with cordage. There is also an ivory sleeve that fits over the end of the shaft near the points to hold everything in place. The gap between opposing outer spear tip segments is approximately 3 cm at the tip. This multi barbed spear point was designed to catch and hold onto bird wings, so you do not need a kill impact to catch the bird. This spear is in excellent condition. I have owned it for nearly 30 years and it was old when I acquired it. The gallery that sold it to me said it was from the first half of the 20th Century, so it is between 50 and 100 years of age. A well made artifact that displays excellent Native American workmanship.