THE GREAT ALEUTIAN CHAIN. 165 



seal and sea-lion intestines. In the poverty-smitten stations of 

 Akoon and Avatanak the early bird-skin " parkas " will probably be 

 most commonly worn ; (but it is because these natives are so miser- 

 ably poor in furs that they do so). They get from the trader's store 

 at every village a full assortment of our own shop-made clothes, 

 and, on Sunday in especial, many shiny broadcloth suits will be dis- 

 played by the luckier hunters. The women are all attired in cotton 

 dresses and gowns, made up pretty closely in imitation of the pre- 

 vailing fashions among our own people. They wear the boots and 

 shoes which are regularly brought up from San Francisco. But 

 whenever they go out fox-trapping, or enter their bidarkas, they 

 wear the "tarbosar" or water- proof boot of primitive use the up- 

 pers to it are made from the intestines or the gullets of marine 

 mammalia, and it is soled with the tough flipper palms of a sea-lion. 



They have the same weakness for our conventional high stove- 

 pipe hats which we display ; but the prevalence of those boisterous 

 gales and winds peculiar to these latitudes prevents that use of the 

 cherished " beaver " that they otherwise would make of it. Instead, 

 they universally wear low-crowned, leather-peaked caps, to which 

 they love to add a gay red-ribbon band, suggested most likely 

 by the recollection which they have of that gorgeous regalia of the 

 Russian army and naval officers, who were wont to appear in full 

 dress very often when among them in olden time. 



The Aleutian men dress very plainly, young and old alike, little 

 or no attention being given by them to details of color or orna- 

 mentation, as is the common usage and practice of most semi-civil- 

 ized races ; but they do lavish a great deal of care and skill in the 

 decoration of their antique "kamlaykas," " tarbosars," and their bi- 

 darkas : the seams of these garments and the boats are frequently 

 embellished with gay tufts of gaily colored sea-bird feathers and 

 lines of goose-quill embroidery. 



True feminine desire for all the bright ribbons and cheap jew- 

 elry that a trader spreads before her consumes the heart of the 

 Aleutian woman, especially if she be young and admired by her 

 people. The women are, therefore, only limited by their means, 

 when it comes to bedecking themselves with all of these trinkets 

 and gewgaws of the kind which the artful trader exhibits for that 

 purpose. They braid their hair up in two queues usually and let 

 them hang down behind upon their backs. They never wear bon- 

 nets, or hats, for that matter ; but as they go to church or from hut 



