212 



THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT 



[ETH. AXX. 18 



SNOWSHOES 



Among the western Eskimo snowshoes are in common use. They 

 are of the greatest service for traveling, both over the sea ice and on 

 land, and are used by both men and women, but more largely of course 

 by men, as their more active life necessitates almost constant travel 

 while hunting, visiting netting places on the ice, or traps on the shore. 

 For traveling on land, where the snow is softer and deeper than on the 

 sea ice, snowshoes with larger and finer netting arc used. Figure 03 

 represents snowshoes, used for laud travel, which were obtained near 

 the head of Norton bay. They are made of two pieces of wood, spliced 

 in front where they curve upward at the toe, held together by means of 



FIG. 63 Snowshoes from Norton bay. 



two crossbars in the middle, before and behind the foot-rest. The net 

 ting in front of the first crossbar is hexagonal in shape, and in the rear 

 consists of ten cords passing through holes in the hindmost crossbar 

 and converging to the thong that binds the frame together at the heel. 

 The foot-rest is on a stout netting made of widely spaced crosscords 

 attached to the framework on the sides as well as to the crossbars. 



This is the general style of snowshoe worn about the shores of 

 Norton sound and thence southward to the Kuskokwim, and up lower 

 Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Various forms of coarsely netted 

 snowshoes are used on the sea ice at different points along the coast. 



Figure G4 shows the style of snowshoe used at Cape Darby. The 

 frame is in two pieces, rounded in cross section and tapering in front, 

 where they are curved strongly upward at the ends which overlap and 



