﻿384 KUTCHIN. 



servation. The men alone paddle, while the women 

 sit as passengers; and husbands will even carry their 

 wives to the shore in their arms, that they may not 

 wet their feet. The Eskimo women row their own 

 umiaks, and the Chepewyan women assist the men 

 in paddling their canoes. On the whole, the social 

 condition of the Kutchin women is far superior to 

 that of the Chepewyan women, but scarcely equal 

 to that of the Eskimo dames. 



The Kutchin women do not carry their infants 

 in their hoods or boots after the Eskimo fashion, nor 

 do they stuff them into a bag with moss, as the 

 Chepewyans and Crees do, but they place them in 

 a seat of birch bark, with back and sides like those 

 of an arm chair, and a pommel in front, resembling 

 the peak of a Spanish saddle. This hangs at the 

 woman's back, suspended by a strap which passes 

 over her shoulders, and the infant is seated in it, 

 with its back to hers, and its legs, well cased in warm 

 boots, hanging down on each side of the pommel. 

 The child's feet are bandaged to prevent their 

 growing, small feet being thought handsome ; and 

 the consequence is, that short unshapely feet are 

 characteristic of the people. A practice so closely 

 resembling the Chinese one, though not confined, 

 as with them, to females, may interest ethnolo- 

 gists. 



The Kutchin live more comfortably than the 



