494 SECOND VOYAGE FOR THE DISCOVERY 



equal parts, one of which hangs on each side of their heads and in front of 

 tkeir shoulders. To stiffen and bind these they use a narrow strap of deer- 

 skin, attached at one end to a round piece of bone, fourteen inches long, 

 tapered to a point, and covered over witli leather. This looks like a little 

 whip, the handle of which is placed up and down the hair, and the strap 

 wound round it in a number of spiral turns, making the tail, thus e(piipped, 

 very much resemble one of those formerly worn by our seamen. The strap 

 of this article of dress, which is altogether called a tu^lctgd, is so made from 

 the deer-skin as to shew, when bound round the hair, alternate turns of 

 white and dark fur, which give it a very neat and ornamental a])pearance. 

 On ordinary occasions it is considered slovenly not to have the hair thus 

 dressed, and the neatest of the women never visited the ships without it. 

 Those who are less nice dispose their hair into a loose plait on each side, 

 or have one togleega and one plait; and others again, wholly disregarding 

 the business of the toilette, merely tucked their hair in under the breast of 

 their jackets. Some of the women's hair was tolerably fine, but would not 

 in this respect bear a comparison with that of an Englishwoman. In both 

 sexes it is full of vermin, which they are in the constant habit of picking out 

 and eating ; a man and his wife will sit for an hour together, performing 

 for each other that friendly office. The women have a comb, (12.)* which, 

 however, seems more intended for ornament than use, as we seldom or never 

 observed them comb their hair. When a woman's husband is ill she wears her 

 hair loose, and cuts it off as a sign of mourning if he dies; a custom agreeing 

 with that of the Greenlanders f. It is probable also, from what has been before 

 said, that some opprobrium is attached to the loss of a woman's hair when 

 no such occasion demands this sacrifice "l. Tlie men wear the hair on the 

 upper lip and chin, from an inch to an inch and a half in length, and some 

 were distinguished by a little tuft between the chin and lower lip. 

 . The dresses both of male and fevnale are composed almost entirely of deer- 

 skin, in which respect they difler from those of most Esquimaux before met 



* This and tlie other numbers thus occurring in the course of this chapter, refer to tlie 

 corresponding numbers in the two Engravings of Imj)lements, £)-c. 



f Crantz's History of Greenland, London edition, 1767, i. 138, 240. In tlie following 

 account of the Esquimaux, references will occasionally be marie to Crantz and Ef^edc, as 

 well to point out any dissimilarity, as any resemblance, between these people and the nations 

 of Greenland. 



+ Id. ibid. 



