132 KELIQUI.E 



with which they prepared the thread. The North-Europeans seem to have been 

 acquainted with the use of metals long before the American Esquimaux. Thus 

 the Kamtschadale women who, towards the middle of the last century, used for 

 sewing and embroidering sometimes vegetable thread, sometimes the sinews of 

 quadrupeds, were provided with steel needles by the Russians, and at an earlier 

 date got them from Japan*. 



Captain Parry t furnishes also similar notices of the employment by the Esqui- 

 maux of thread made of Reindeer tendon; and he gives some very interesting 

 details relating to their management of the needle, and the preparation to which 

 they subject the skins intended to be sewn together for garments, probably to give 

 greater facility to the passage of the needles, especially when these are of bone. 

 He says : " The thread they use is the sinew of the Reindeer (tooktoo ewalloo), or, 

 when they cannot procure this, the swallow-pipe of the Neitiek [a kind of Seal ?]. 

 This may be split into threads of different sizes, according to the nature of their 

 work, and is certainly a most admirable material. In sewing, the point of the 

 needle is entered and drawn through in a direction towards the body, and not from 

 it or towards one side as with our seamstresses. They sew the Deer-skins with a 

 ' round seam ; ' and the water-tight boots and shoes are ' stitched.' The latter is 

 performed in a very adroit and efficacious manner, by putting the needle only half 

 through the substance of one part of the Seal-skin, so as to leave no hole for 

 admitting the water. To soften the Seal-skins of which the boots, shoes, and 

 mittens are made, the women chew them an hour or two together, and the young 

 girls are often seen employed in thus preparing the materials for their mothers." 

 It can readily be conceived that this preparation would greatly facilitate the 

 passage of a bone or ivory needle through the edges of two skins that have to be 

 joined by sewing at the edge (" overcasting ") or by stitching flat. 



Now, if the reader looks at our B. Plate XVII., he will see in figs. 7-20 a series 

 of fourteen needles of different sizes, and all pierced with an eye, or hole for 

 threading. In the two longest (figs. 7 and 12) the top of the needle has broken 

 off at the eye, the lower border of the perforation remaining. The longest 

 specimens have been made of flakes detached by sawing from Reindeer antlers, 

 and subsequently cut thin and round so as to taper to a point at one end, whilst 

 the other is somewhat flattened and pierced with the. hole for the passage of the 



* Description do toutes les nations de 1'Empirc de Eussie [par J. G. Georgi] ; St. Petersburg, 3 torn. 1776, 

 4to ; and 1797, 3 me Collection, p. 86. See also ' Russia ; or a compleat historical account of all the nations 

 which compose that Empire,' 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1780, vol. iii. p. 150. 



t Loc. cit. 





