338 



come to be inside, and hung up for preserving and drying on 

 a thong, which is passed through a hole made with a bone 

 needle. When the sl^ins are again taken down for treatment, 

 they are subjected to a very careful process of chewing ; the 

 women place the skin in their mouths and chew it, turning it 

 round and round in the mouth, until every little bit of the skin 

 has been chewed. The skin is thus softened and made smooth, 

 and the fat sucked out. After drying it is then cut up. 



F The process of cutting up is shown 



on fig. 29, which represents a Little Auk 

 skin turned inside out, on which I 

 have endeavoured by means of letters 

 and dots to show the lines along which 

 the skin is cut up with the ulo. First 

 the tail is cut off along the dotted line 

 В B\ and then the ends of the two 

 skin-stumps of the legs A and A' along 

 the dotted lines at b and c. The third 

 and fourth sections are made along 

 the profile of the figure from В to b 

 and from B' to c, so Ihat the hind 

 end of the skin, instead of 3 small, 

 comes to have one large opening. 

 Then the skin of the one wing is cut 

 off along the line HK. The next cut begins in the middle of 

 the skin of the other wing at ö, is carried from there up to 

 D and further to E. Thereafter the skin is cut along profile 

 line from К io A and then the middle line DF of the neck- 

 skin. As a rule the line GC, the uncut wing, is not cut until 

 the last. The skin is now folded out like a plate and can be 

 sewed together with others, for which purpose, however, it is 

 somewhat clipped along the edges. About 100 skins of the 

 Little Auk is used for one of these inner pelts, whilst of the 

 Auk not a fourth part of this number is required; but the pelt 

 of the Little Auk is said to be the softest and warmest. 



Fig. 29. 



