THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 39 



The initial perforations are made when a boy is fourteen or sixteen 

 years old, when little plugs are put in, just big enough to keep the 

 hole from closing up entirely. As the healing takes place it is the 

 mucous membrane of the inside of the mouth rather than the skin of 

 the outside of the face that forms the lining of these holes. After the 

 healing is complete, bigger and bigger plugs are put in until the hole in 

 the lip is somewhat bigger in diameter than a lead pencil. The orna- 

 ments are then put in by one of two methods : either they are inserted 

 from the inside, somewhat as a collar-button is put in a shirt, or they 

 are buttoned in from the outside, if it is desired to wear one of the large 

 labrets. 



I was now able to buy one of jadite that, as I remember it, must 

 have been about two inches and a half long and more than an inch 

 wide. This ornament, that would have been unique in the ethnological 

 collection of any museum, was unfortunately later lost, and we have 

 not even a photograph to show what it looked like. I suppose the Eski- 

 mos considered it beautiful, but to us it would have been remarkable 

 chiefly in showing to what grotesque lengths ornamentation may go, for 

 when buttoned into one corner of the mouth it would have extended 

 below the chin of the wearer and up his cheek fully halfway to the eye. 



The custom of wearing labrets once extended from the most southerly 

 Eskimos on the south coast of Alaska around the west end of the penin- 

 sula and east along the north coast into Canada as far as Cape Bathurst. 

 When I first came to the mouth of the Mackenzie in 1906 it was still 

 customary to pierce the lips of young men, although there were some 

 who refused to have it done. A year or two later the practice was 

 definitely abandoned and now perforated lips are seen only among men 

 of middle age or beyond. 



It would be of ethnological interest to know why the labret fashion 

 did not extend east beyond Cape Bathurst. Following the tendency 

 to seize upon explanations that are "sensible," some writers have pointed 

 out that the severity of the climate increases gradually as you go east- 

 ward from Bering Straits, so that labrets could not be worn to the 

 eastward without great danger of freezing the face. The stone of which 

 the labrets were made was assumed to be a good conductor of heat, and to 

 induce freezing of the parts immediately touching it. The trouble with 

 this eplanation is, first, that the postulated increasing severity of winter 

 climate as you go east is by no means pronounced; and second, that 

 no such freezing as premised has ever been known to occur. I have 

 observed that Eskimos who take their labrets out while in the warmth 

 of the house put them in before going out of doors into the most severe 

 weather, and I have found on inquiry no Eskimo who has ever heard 

 of freezing of the lip brought about by the wearing of a labret. On the 

 other hand, being without the labret out of doors is inconvenient for 

 those who have perforated lips, for the holes in many cases are so low 

 that the saliva streams out through them and down the chin if they are 

 not plugged up with a button of some sort. This happened in the 



