416 THE POINT HARROW ESKIMO. 



without bringing it out into the air. Children are carried in this way 

 until they are able to walk and often later. 



A large child sits astride of his mother s back, with one leg under 

 each of her arms, and has a little suit of clothes in which he is dressed 

 when the mother wishes to set him down. When the child is awake, 

 this hood is thrown back and the child raised quite high so that he looks 

 over his mother s shoulder, who then covers her head with a cloth or 

 something of the sort. The woman appears to be very little incon 

 venienced by her burden, and goes about her work as usual, and the 

 child does not seem to be disturbed by her movements. The little girls 

 often act as nurses and carry the infants around on their backs, in the 

 same way. It is no unusual sight to see a little girl of ten or twelve 

 carrying a well grown, heavy child in this way. 



This custom or a very similar one seems to prevail among the Eskimo 

 generally. In Greenland, the nurse wears a garment especially de 

 signed for carrying the child, an amaut, i. e., a garment that is so wide 

 in the back as to hold a child, which generally tumbles in it quite 

 naked and is accommodated with no other swaddling clothes or cradle. 1 

 In East Greenland, according to Capt. Holm, &quot; Saa leeiige B^rnene ere 

 smaa, ba3res de i det fri paa Moderens Ryg.&quot; 2 



Petitot s description of the method of carrying the children in the 

 Mackenzie district is so naive that it deserves to be quoted entire. 3 



Les meres qui allaitent portent une jaquette ample et serre e autour des reins par 

 une ceinture. Elles y enformentleurchere proge niture qu elles peuvent, par ce moyen, 

 allaiter sans 1 exposer a un froid qui lui serait mortel. Ces jeunes onfants sont sans 

 aucun vfitement jusqu a 1 age d environ deux ans. Quant aux incongruities que ces 

 potites creatures peuvent se permettre sur le dos de leur mere, qui leur sert de calo- 

 rifere, 1 amour matcrnel, le meme chez tous les peuples, les endure patiemment et 

 avec indifference. 



At Fury and Hecla Straits, according to Parry 4 , the children are 

 carried in the hood, which is made specially large on purpose, but 

 sometimes also on the back, as at Point Barrow. The enormous hoods 

 of the Eskimo women in Labrador also served to hold the child. The 

 same custom prevails at Cumberland Gulf. 5 In some localities, for in 

 stance the north shore of Hudson s Straits, where the woman wear very 

 long and loose boots, the children are said to be carried in these. 6 Frank 

 lin 7 refers to the same custom &quot;east of the Mackenzie Eiver.&quot; The 

 Siberian children, however, are dressed in regular swaddling clothes 

 of deerskin, with a sort of diaper of dried moss. 8 



We never heard of a single case of infanticide, and, indeed, children 



Crantz, vol. 1, p. 138. See also Egede, p. 131, and the picture in Rink s Tales, etc., opposite p. 8. 



iGeografisk Tidskrift, vol. 8, p. 91. 



Monographic, etc., p. xv. 



4 Second Voyage, p. 495. 



Kumlion. Contributions, p. 24. 



See Ellis, Voyage, etc., p. 136, and plate opposite p. 132. 



Second Ex., p. 226. 



Nordenskiold. Vega, vol.2, p. 101. 



