345 



practical struggle for life — at any rate in earlier years — 

 engaged all their powers and interest, so that no energy was 

 left unused which could be converted into such uneconomical 

 things as ornaments. Among the Polar Eskimos all things are 

 judged by a purely practical standard; but as the struggle for 

 life has now been made easier for them in several ways, it will 

 be interesting to follow their future development and, for ex- 

 ample, observe how a desire for ornamentation with the use of 

 European buttons, pearls, bands etc., will also certainly develop 

 amongst them. A beginning of this kind was indeed already 

 to be noticed. Thus, one of the women (Fig. 30) was wearing 

 a narrow skin-ring round the neck and for ^'/r>ths of its extent 

 the front edge of the ring was beset alternately with small, 

 black and white beads ; further, three small fringes on the front 

 edge of the ring each ended in a large, glass bead and the 

 middle fringe was ornamented by a large, white button. I saw 

 a more indigenous case of ornamentation on the kamikker of 

 a young woman (Fig. 86). In the middle line above and in front 

 these had a 3 — 4 cm broad piece of black skin, which composed 

 more than Vsrd of the length of the kamikker in front of the 

 leg and looked quite pretty. In answer to my question, I re- 

 ceived the explanation, that she had not had sufficient of the 

 light-coloured skin for the kamikker and had to eke it out with 

 the black; she had thought it best therefore to make both 

 kamikker in the same way. Nevertheless she had also under- 

 stood how to make them so as to look best. It is also pos- 

 sible, that the Polar Eskimos will in future simply take over 

 the West Greenland ornamentation, adapting it somewhat to 

 their special conditions. 



As will appear from the photographs given here of the 

 Polar Eskimos, the men wear their hair long and usually hang- 

 ing loose down from the head, so that they are obliged every 

 moment to give a small toss with the head or take their hands 

 to clear their eyes. Sometimes, however, they use a thin 



