DBESS AND PHYSIQUE OF THE ESKIMOS. 225 



the same stuff as the men's water-proof boots. The men some- 

 times wear pantaloons like the women, and the boys all do till 

 they arrive at manhood and have their lips pierced for the labrets. 

 The boys wear jackets like the men's, but the little girls' dress is 

 a perfect miniature of the women's, even to the pocket at the back 

 of the neck for the baby's head. Indeed, the larger girls some- 

 times do duty as nurses, and carry round their little sisters in 

 their jackets like grown women. 



The usual material for jackets is reindeer-skin, prepared with- 

 out any process of tanning. The skin is first dried in the sun, and 

 then the stiff under membrane is carefully scraped off with a very 

 effective tool made of a small piece of flint chipped into a blunt 

 blade, and fitted into a handle of ivory or wood, shaped so as to 

 fit exactly into the hollow of the hand. This scraping also serves 

 to soften the skin, just as you soften a sheet of stiff paper by rub- 

 bing it up, and the skin is finally finished off by rubbing it with 

 pumice-stone and gypsum or chalk. When the skin is finished 

 the inside looks and feels like white wash-leather, but, of course, 

 is easily spoiled by wetting. All sorts of skins that are to be used 

 with the hair on are dressed in this way. 



To make a frock of ordinary thickness, they usually select the 

 skins of does in their summer coat, one for the front and one for 

 the back, and put them together so that the best part of the skin, 

 on the back of the animal, comes on the front and back of the 

 person where it will show, while the poorer skin from the belly is 

 concealed under the arms or the sides. The head of one skin is 

 made into the hood by fitting it in with seams. All these gar- 

 ments are made on regular patterns, just as our clothes are ; all 

 jackets, for instance, having practically the same number of pieces. 

 To make the frock fit round the neck, there is a curved triangular 

 piece let in on each side of the throat, and these throat-pieces are 

 always made of the white skin from the belly of the deer, no mat- 

 ter what is the color of the rest of the garment. This gives a very 

 pretty effect to the frock. 



Heavy frocks for very cold weather, especially for wear when 

 out on the ice seal-hunting, are made of skins of deer in the thick 

 gray winter coat. Now and then you see a frock made of the 

 Alaskan variety of the mountain sheep, which is of a pale buff 

 color, almost white. Full-dress frocks are also made of the 

 white or variegated white and brown skins of the tame Sibe- 

 rian reindeer, which they get by trading from the Eskimos 

 whom they meet in the summer at the mouth of the Colville 

 River. The latter get them from Kotzebue Sound, whither they 

 are brought from Asia across Bering Strait. These skins are 

 highly prized. 



There was one old fellow at Cape Smyth who was a very great 



VOL. XSXTIII. 16, 



