Mi-nnoi-ii.1 1 KUSOX.U. I1AIUTS. 421 



The contents of this vessel, being mixed with t eces, is not fit tor 

 tunning skins, etc., and is consequently thrown out doors. The men 

 use a small tub (kuovwlfi) as a urinal, and the contents of this is care 

 fully saved. Though the interior of the house is thus kept clean, as 

 much can not be said for its surroundings. All manner of rubbish and 

 filth is simply thrown out upon the ground, without regard to decency 

 or comfort, and this becomes exceedingly offensive when the snow melts 

 in summer. The only scavengers are the dogs, who greedily devour old 

 pieces of skin, refuse meat, and even feces. In regard to personal 

 cleanliness, there is considerable difference between individuals. Some 

 people, especially the poorer women and children, are not only careless 

 about their clothes, going about dressed in ragged, greasy, filthy gar 

 ments, but seldom wash even their faces and hands, much less their 

 whole persons. One of these women, indeed, was described by her 

 grown-up daughter as &quot;That woman with the black on her nose.&quot; 



On the other hand most of the wealthier people appear to take pride 

 in being neatly clad, and, except when actually engaged in some dirty 

 work, always have their faces and hands, at least, scrupulously clean 

 and their hair neatly combed. Even the whole person is sometimes 

 washed in spite of the scarcity of water. Many are glad to get soap 

 (mkiikun) and use it freely. Lieut. Ray says that his two guides, 

 Mu nialu and Apaidyao, at the end of a day s march would never sit 

 down to supper without washing their faces and hands with soap and 

 water, and combing their hair, and I recollect that once, when I went over 

 to the village to get a young man to start with Lieut. Kay on a boat 

 journey, he would not start until he had hunted up a piece of soap and 

 washed his face and hands. These people, of course, practice the 

 usual Eskimo habit of washing themselves with freshly passed urine. 

 This custom arises not only from the scarcity of water and the diffi 

 culty of heating it, but from the fact that the ammonia of the urine is 

 an excellent substitute for soap in removing the grease with which the 

 skin necessarily becomes soiled. 1 This fact is well known to our whale 

 men, who are in the habit of saving their urine to wash the oily clothes 

 with. The same habit is practiced by the &quot; Chukches&quot; of eastern Siberia. 2 

 All, however, get more or less shabby and dirty in the summer, when 

 they are living in tents and boats. All are more or less infested 

 with lice, and they are in the habit of searching each others heads for 

 these, which they eat, after the fashion of so many other savages. They 

 have also another filthy habit that of eating the mucus from the nos 

 trils. A similar practice was noticed in Greenland by Egedc,&quot; \\1io 

 goes on quaintly to say: Thus they make good the old proverb, What 

 drips from the nose falls into the mouth, that nothing may be lost. &quot; 



1 Compare Ball. Alaska, p. 20. 



2 S! JforileiiKkiokl, Vega. vol. :!. p. 104. 



3 &amp;lt;ifo iil;in(l. ii. I JT. 



3 &amp;lt;ir&amp;lt;M iil;intl. p. rj 



