1914] Northwestern D6n6s A^JD Northeastern Asiatics 151 



eastern Siberians. The blanket thrown over the shoulders of the THn- 

 gets can scarcely be said to cover their nakedness, any more than the 

 bird skin costume of the Aleutians, inasmuch as men of either tribe 

 discard every vestige of clothing on the slightest pretext. 



As to the Eskimos of the Far West, it is well known that they sleep 

 stark naked. Of the aborigines he calls "Konaeges" the Russian 

 Gregory Shelekofif writes also that they "wear no shirt, go barefoot and 

 when at home are quite naked ",^ while an old author asserts that, 

 among the Koriaks of Siberia, "a whole Family will lie all naked together 

 under one large Coverlet".^ The same writer then goes on to describe 

 others of their habits which had better be explained in Latin than in 

 modern English. 



Apropos of vestments made of birds' skins, they are, I believe, 

 characteristic of all the aboriginal Aleutians. In fact, Coxe mentions 

 them no less than ten times in connection with as many native groups 

 of their archipelago and that of the Fox Islanders. Of the latter he 

 writes: "The men wear shirts made of the skins of cormorants, sea- 

 divers and gulls",' and of others he says: "The natives of the above 

 mentioned islands are very tall and strongly made. They make their 

 cloaths of the skins of birds".* 



With regard to his "Konaeges" Shelekoff mentions clothing of 

 similar material,* while the same was used quite close to the Asiatic 

 continent and far from America, namely on an island lying opposite 

 Anadyrskoi Noss (or Cape Anadyr), according to Wrangell, who writes: 

 "This race have a language of their own and make clothes of duck- 

 skins".* 



Now the Tsoetsaut, a North Pacific coast subtribe of the D6n4s, 

 and, I believe, the Carriers, whose habitat is Central British Columbia, 

 claim that they formerly wore an identical sort of clothing.^ 



According to Petitot, the Loucheux's, original enemies with whom 

 they parted in course of time to reach their present quarters, wore 

 wooden helmets. But Coxe tells us that, in the spring of 1754, the 

 Russians discovered an island which "seemed to be opposite to Katyskoi 

 Noss, in the peninsula of Kamtchatka, " whose inhabitants wore "wooden 



^ Ibid., ibid. 



• S. Muller, ubi supri, p. IX. 

 '"Account of the Russian Discoveries", p. 197. 



Ibid., p. 75. See also Sarytschew, "Account of a Voyage of Discovery", pp. 8, 18; 

 also S. Muller, "Voyages fronn Asia to America", pp. XXII, XXIV. 

 *0p. cit., p. 37. 



•"Narrative of an Expedition to the Polar Sea", p. 414; London, 1844. 

 ' Tenth Report on the North-Western Tribes of Canada, p. 560. 



