INNUIT LIFE AND LAND. 377 



tache and chin-whisker, of which he is as proud as though a 

 Caucasian. He has shapely hands and feet ; his limbs are well 

 made, formed, and muscled. An Innuit woman is proportionately 

 smaller than the man, and, when young, sometimes she is not un- 

 pleasant to look at. The skin of her cheeks then will be faintly 

 suffused with blushes of natural color, her lips pouting and red, 

 with small, tapering hands and high-instepped feet. She rarely 

 pierces her lips or disfigures her nose ; she lavishes upon her child 

 or children a wealth of affectionate attention endows them with 

 all her ornaments. She allows her hair to grow to its full length, 

 gathers it up behind into thick braids, or else it is bound up in 

 ropes lashed by copper wire or sinews. She seldom tattooes her 



An Innuit Woman. 



skin in any place ; a faint drawing of transverse blue lines upon the 

 chin and cheeks is usually made by her best friend when she is 

 married. 



We are not reminded of the clothing stores of San Francisco 

 when we meet Innuits everywhere between Point Barrow and Noo- 

 shagak ; they are clad in the primitive garments of their remote 

 ancestry, as a rule a few exceptions to this generalization being 

 those individuals who are living constantly about the widely scat- 

 tered trading-posts, and the chapels, or missions, located in their 

 territory, where they act as servants or interpreters. The conven- 

 tional coat of these people is the " parka," made of marmot and 

 muskrat skins, or of tanned reindeer-hides, with enormous winter 

 hoods, or collars, of dog-hair or fox-fur. This parka has sleeves, 

 and compasses the body of the wearer, without an opening either 



