DRESS OF WOMEN. LONGEVITY. 246 



and copper for the wrists, and on dancing occasions their wealth is 

 displayed in broad bands of small beads of different colours, arranged 

 according to the taste of the wearer, attached by one end to the 

 coat at the neck, and by the other to the middle of the front skirt. 

 Large beads seem to be used only by the men, some of whom were 

 vain enough to display them in strings ronnd the head or hanging 

 in front of the coat, and we remarked that no part of the materials 

 procured from the ship was used as clothing by the women. 

 Buttons were the only ornaments they seemed to adopt for the belt, 

 and to fasten the beads in their hair. 



Instead of a knife the women wear at the inner belt a needle-case, 

 which is merely a narrow strip of skin in which the needles arc 

 stuck, with a tube of bone, ivory, or iron to slide down over them, 

 and kept from slipping off the lower end by a knot or large head. 

 Their pipe is commonly smaller and lighter than tho men's, and 

 they do not carry it in a bag, but in the hand or inside the 

 coat at the back ; and the flint and steel is not so general 

 with them, as their work is seldom out of doors except in com- 

 pany with the men. They have a singular habit of wearing 

 only one mitten, protecting the other hand under the flap of tho 

 coat, or drawing it inside the sleeve, in preference to carrying a 

 second. 



The shape of the coat serves to distinguish the sex of children as 

 soon as they are able to walk alone, but the woman's form of 

 mocassins is used by boys until they are well grown. 



The physical constitution of both sexes is strong, and they bear 

 exposure during the coldest weather for many hours together with- 

 out appearing inconvenienced, further than occasional frost-bites on 

 the cheeks. They also show great endurance of fatigue during 

 their journeys in the summer, particularly that, part in which they 

 require to drag the family boat, laden with their summer tent and 

 all their moveables, on a sledge over the ice. 



Extreme longevity is probably not unknown among them ; but as 

 they take no heed to number the years as they pass, they can form 

 no guess of their own ages, invariably stating "they have many 

 years." Judging altogether from appearance, a man whom we saw 

 in the neighbourhood of Kofzebue Sound could nol be less than 

 eighty years of age. He had long been confined to his bed, and 

 appeared quite in his dotage. There was another at Point I '.a now, 

 whose wrinkled face, silvery hair, toothless gums, ami shrunk limbs 

 indicated an age nothing short of seventy-five. This man died in 

 the month of April 1853,and had paid a visit to the ship only a few 

 days before, when his intellect seemed unimpaired, and his vision 



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