105 



between it and any white influence in Labrador, except the 

 secondary influence in form already described. 



TATTOOING. 



Thalbitzer, in his excellent notes on the Amdrup ethnological 

 collection from East Greenland (page 424), has made the sug- 

 gestion that tattoo patterns on the Eskimo are in the main the 

 same as those carved on ivory and sewn on skin. I had inde- 

 pendently arrived at a similar conclusion from a study of Eskimo 

 designs in general, i.e., that there is a fundamental unity between 

 the conventional Eskimo designs on ivory, fur, and leather- 

 applique work, and on the person, which vary slightly according 

 to the material used and the shape of the surface. The dotted 

 lines seen on the chins of Eskimo women (see Figure 31) and 

 running from the mouth to the ear among old Alaskan men, 

 are perhaps the simplest design on ivory. The Y-shaped design, 

 common among the Central and Alaskan Eskimo in tattooing 1 

 and on ivory, is seen in Figure 31 b on a woman from the east 

 coast of Hudson bay. 



Perhaps a variation of this design is the whale's tail tattooed 

 at the corner of the mouth of the men among the Alaskan and 

 Asiatic Eskimo (see Figure 32 c), also seen on an old man from 

 Ungava. It is also found as a conventional ornament on small 

 articles in ivory among the Labrador and Greenland Eskimo 

 (Plate XXI Vb). 



Figure 31 e approaches the crossed lines used as a filler of 

 space in ivory work (see Plate XXVI a) . The other designs are 

 self-evident. The concentric circle is found in tattooing on the 

 arms of women in Bering strait. 2 The diamond-shaped design, 

 tattooed on the arm of a southern Baffin Island woman (see 

 Figure 30) is similar to a design in leather-appliqu work among 

 the Central and Alaskan Eskimo. 



1 See Boas, The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson's Bay, Fig. 158, p. 108. 

 1 See G. B. Gordon, Notes on the western Eskimo, Plate X, Trans, of the Univ. of Penn., 

 Arch. Dept., vol. 2. 



