Dr King on the Physical Characters of the Esquimattx, 307 



Roger Curtis informs us, that at Labrador the natives load 

 their heads with large strings of beads, which they fasten to 

 the hair above the ears ; and Captain Lyon found the natives 

 of Southampton Island adopting the same fashion ; but instead 

 of beads, having at one time little bone ornaments, and at an- 

 other time small irregularly shaped pieces of lead, strung al- 

 ternately with square cut pieces of the claw of a bird. Ai- 

 though but one of the women of Kotzebue Inlet was observed 

 to wear a necklace, there were several who had a mode of 

 ornamenting themselves quite peculiar. They had suspended 

 to their hips, under their clothes, three or four bells, and oae 

 even lower down, which was of the size of a dustman'*s belL 

 For what purposes they were placed there, was not within the 

 reach of conjecture ; but " by their polished surface, and the 

 manner in which they were suspended, they appeared to have 

 long occupied those places. They were certainly not hung 

 there for convenience, as the large one, in particular^ must 

 have materially incommoded them in walking."* 



Among the personal ornaments of the Esquimaux must be 

 reckoned that of tattooing, which is of indispensable import- 

 ance to the women. The parts of the body thus adorned are 

 the face, arms, hands, thighs, occasionally the breasts, and, in 

 Greenland, the feet. Tatooing is rarely practised by the 

 men ; a few only of the natives of Melville Peninsula were 

 thus marked on the back of the hands, considered by them as 

 a souvenir of some distant or deceased person who had per- 

 formed it ; and Sir John Franklin heard from one tribe, that 

 another tribe were accustomed to tattoo their faces. The art 

 is most abundantly practised by the women of Melville Pen- 

 insula, of Regent's Inlet, and of the Great Fish River, the 

 pattern being the same, though varying in the number of lines. 

 The pattern consists of from three to six lines drawn hori- 

 zontally across each cheek, from three to eighteen vertically 

 across the chin, and from three to eight from the forehead to 

 the centre of the nose (between the eyebrows), a double line 

 round the neck and breast, above the shoulder, another below 

 the shoulder, and a third above the elbow. Between each of 



* Beechy. 



