512 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



J'kotu hi/ M. Pierre Petit\ 



{.Paris. 



ESKIMO AND SLEDGE. 



of the women reach only 

 to the knees or a little 

 below, are attached to 

 neatly made boots of seal- 

 skin; these latter being 

 so well suited to the 

 climate that they are 

 adopted by nearly all 

 Europeans who visit the 

 Eskimo. The trousers 

 of the women may be 

 decorated with the neck- 

 skin of the eider-duck or 

 with trimmings of em- 

 broidered leather; while 

 their boots, which in 

 Greenland are generally 

 dyed of various colours, 

 reach above the knees, 

 where they are sometimes 

 cut very wide. During 



winter an Eskimo used to be provided with two suits of the above description, one of which 

 had the fur inside, while in the other it was turned outwards. In the south of Danish 

 Greenland fur jackets with the hairy side outwards have, according to Dr. Rink, long since 

 disappeared, although they are still retained in the north, where they are also made of greater 

 length. In addition to the above-mentioned garments, the Eskimo sometimes wear vests or 

 shirts made of the skin and down of sea-birds, as well as socks made of reindeer-fawn leather. 

 Occasionally, too, jackets are made of bird-skins, with the feathers outside; the British Museum 

 possessing a beautiful specimen from Port Clarence, Alaska, the material of which appears to 

 be chiefly the wonderfully soft and warm breast-skin of the eider-duck. In this neighbourhood 

 Baron Nordeuskiold describes many of the natives as wearing European clothes; while others 

 were clad in trousers of seal- or reindeer-skin, and a light, soft, often beautifully ornamented 

 pesk of suslik*-skiu; an overcoat made of pieces of gut sewn together being frequently worn 

 over the latter in rainy weather. In all respects the Eskimo are neat workers, and their 

 clothes form no exception to this rule. Formerly the sewing was always done with the afore- 

 said sinew thread and a bone needle, but a steel implement now frequently replaces the latter. 



Except in the middle of summer, the boots require to be changed whenever they are 

 wetted, else they would freeze as hard as a board. Among the poorer classes in Danish 

 Greenland, who appear to be amongst the most wretched of the whole race, this precaution 

 is, however, by no means always taken. These people, indeed, serve to show the extreme 

 hardihood of the Eskimo, and their indifference to intense cold, even when insufficiently 

 clad. Dr. Rink, for instance, writes of them as follows: "How far they surpass the European 

 in hardiness and endurance is more clearly to be seen at the poorer stations when the winter 

 is unusually severe, even in the opinion of the natives. Persons may be seen dressed more 

 like poor people in Southern Europe than Eskimo. Children are seen in rags which scarcely 

 cover their nakedness; their boots being frozen quite hard and stiff, on account of not being 

 taken off for several weeks." 



As might be expected, the Eskimo are by no means remarkable for their attention to 

 personal cleanliness, having an inbred horror of water as a cleansing agent. It is stated, 

 however, that the babies are sometimes licked clean by their mothers before being put to bed 

 into the bag of feathers which serves alike for mattress and blankets. As regards ornaments 



* Commonly miscalled marmot. 



