144 THE POINT HARROW ESKIMO. 



to take a seal entitles a boy to wear labrets, as he suggests. We knew 

 a number of boys who were excellent seal hunters and even able to 

 manage&quot; a kaiak, but none had their lips pierced under the age of 14 or 

 15, when they may be supposed to have reached manhood. The in 

 cisions are at first only large enough to admit a flat-headed pin of wal 

 rus ivory, about the diameter of a crow quill, -worn with the head rest 

 ing against the gum. These are soon replaced by a slightly stouter 

 pair, and these again by stouter ones, until the holes are stretched to a 

 diameter of about one-half inch, when they are ready for the labrets. 



We heard of no special ceremonies or festivals connected with the 

 making of these incisions, such as Dall observed at Norton Sound, 1 but 

 in the one case where the operation was performed at the village of 

 Iltkiavwifi during our stay, we learned that it was done by a man out 

 side of the family of the youth operated upon. We were also informed 

 that the incisions must be made with a little lancet of slate. The em 

 ployment of an implement of ancient form and obsolete material for this 

 purpose indicates, as Dall says in the passage referred to above, &quot;some 

 greater significance than mere ornamentation.&quot; 



The collection contains two specimens of such lancets. No. 80721 

 [1153J (figured in Kept. Point Barrow Expedition, Kthnology, PL v, 

 Fig. 4) is the type. A little blade of soft gray slate is carefully inclosed 

 in a neat ease of cottonwood. The blade is lanceolate, 

 1-3 inches long, 0-0 broad, and 0-1 thick, with a short, 

 broad tang. The faces are somewhat rough, and ground 

 with a broad bevel to very sharp cutting edges. The 

 case is made of two similar pieces of wood, flat on one 

 side and rounded on the other, so that when put together 

 they make a rounded body -5 inches long, slightly flat 

 tened, and tapering toward the rounded ends, of which 

 I m. si. ring fr one is somewhat larger than the other. Round each 

 enlarging labrct ,, n( j j s a niUTOW? dee]), transverse groove for a string to 

 hold the two parts together. A shallow median groove 

 connects these cross grooves on one piece, which is hollowed out on the 

 flat face into a rough cavity of a shape and size suitable to receive the 

 blade, which is produced into a. narrow, deep groove at the point, prob 

 ably to keep the point of the blade from being dulled by touching the 

 wood. The other piece, which serves as a cover, has merely a rough, 

 shallow, oval depression near the middle. The whole is evidently very 

 old, and the case is browned with age and dirt. 



No. 89570 [1200] is a similar blade of reddish purple slate, mounted 

 in a rough haft of bone. Fig. 01, No. 89715 [1211], is one of a pair of 

 bone models, made for sale, of the ivory plugs used for enlarging the 

 holes for the labrets, corresponding in size to about the second pair used. 

 It is roughly whittled out of a coarse-grained compact bone, and closely 



Alaska, ji. 141. 



