GRAPHIC ART OF THE ESKIMOS. 781 



uately did not succeed in learning anything more about him, except 

 that his name (apparently) was Kikamigo. &quot; 



a These gorgets appear to have gone out of fashion,&quot; continues the 

 above-named author, &quot; as we saw none which were not very old, or 

 which appeared to have been used recently. 71 * ! 



METALS. 



Copper, brass, and white metal (consisting of block tin, lead, etc.), as 

 well as an occasional specimen of iron, will be met with bearing rude 

 designs in ornamentation. Very little is done also in silver, especially 

 in the manufacture of bracelets, an art which was imported from the 

 Thlinkit, who, in turn, obtained their first suggestions and patterns 

 from the Haida Indians. Mr. Murdoch reports the practice of engrav 

 ing iron-pipe picks and flint steels at Point Barrow. 



SKINS OF ANIMALS. 



Tanned hides of walrus are sometimes used for purposes where a 

 touch here or there of ornamentation seems to be desired by the native 

 Eskimo. 



Reindeer skin and the small peltries used for articles of clothing are 

 sometimes decorated with designs in color by means of small wooden 

 tools resembling spoons, of which the back of the bowl is cut into pat 

 terns, which are then moistened with the pigments or stains, and 

 finally impressed upon the skin or fabric. This process is very like 

 that practiced by the South Sea Islanders in decorating some forms of 

 tapa cloth. 



TATTOOING. 



The human skin is also used for the portrayal of various designs, the 

 practice of tattooing varying among the several tribes or bands^of 

 Eskimo between Alaska and Greenland. Plate 4 represents a Port 

 Clarence girl with typical tattooing upon the chin. In the female the 

 designs are usually limited to such vertical bars upon the chin. On 

 Plate 22, fig. 7, is also shown tattooing by pictography upon a carved 

 face. 



Referring to the Eskimo of Melville Peninsula, Captain Parry 2 

 remarks: 



Among their personal ornaments must also be reckoned that mode of marking the 

 body called tattooing, which, of the customs not essential to the comfort or happi 

 ness of mankind, is perhaps the most extensively practiced throughout the world. 

 Among these people it seems to be an ornament of indispensable importance to the 

 women, not one of them being without it. The operation is performed about the age 

 of ten or sometimes earlier and has nothing to do with marriage, except that, being 

 considered in the light of a personal charm, it may serve to recommend them as 

 wives. The parts of the body thus marked are their faces, arms, hands, thighs, and 

 in some few women the breasts, but never the feet, as in Greenland. 



1 Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1887-88, 1892, p. 372. 



2 The journal of a second voyage for the discovery of a northwest passage from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific. London, 1824. 



