PACIFIC AND BEERING'S STRAIT. 305 



islands opposite Tschutskoi Noss as having pieces of chap. 



sea-horse tusk thrust into holes in their lips. No hp v 



ornaments similar to these have been seen to the east- Oct. 

 ward of the Mackenzie River ; and indeed we know 

 of no other tribe which has adopted this singular cus- 

 tom of disfiguring the face, except that inhabiting the 

 coast near Prince William Sound, and even there the 

 arrangement differs. It is remarkable that the prac- 

 tice with them is confined to the women, while in the 

 tribe to the northward it is limited to the men. It is 

 also singular, that this barbarous custom of the males 

 is confined to so small a portion of the coast, while 

 that by which the females are distinguished extends 

 from Greenland, along the northern and western shores 

 of America, down to California. 



Nasal ornaments, so common with the tribes to the 

 southward of Oonalaska, were seen by us in one in- 

 stance only, and were then worn by the females of a 

 party whose dialect differed from that in general use 

 with the tribe to the westward of Point Barrow. The 

 custom disappears to the northward of Alaska, and oc- 

 curs again in the tribe near the Mackenzie River. A 

 similar break in the link of fashion in the same nation 

 may be traced in the practice of shaving the crown of 

 the head, which is general with the Western Esqui- 

 maux, ceases at the Mackenzie River, and appears 

 again in Hudson's Bay, and among a tribe of Green- 

 landers, who, when they were discovered by Captain 

 Ross, had been so long excluded from intercourse with 

 any other people, that they imagined themselves the 

 only living human beings upon the face of the globe.* 



* See a letter from Captain Edward Sabine, Journal of Sciencej 

 vol. vii. 



VOL. II. K 



