378 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



before or behind, from his neck to his feet. His head is thrust 

 through an aperture left for it, with a puckering string which draws 

 it up snugly around the neck. In winter the heavy hood-collar, or 

 cowl, is fitted so as to be drawn over his entire head and pulled 

 down to the eyes. This parka is worn with singular ease and 

 abandon ; frequently the arms are withdrawn from the big, baggy 

 sleeves and stowed under the waist-slack of the garment, leaving 

 these empty appendages to dangle. Natives, as they sit down, 

 draw the parka out and over the knees, still keeping their arms un- 

 derneath ; or, when on the trail, and the wet grass and bushes make 

 it imperative, the parka is gathered up and bound by a leather 

 thong-strap or girdle of sinews, so as to keep its bottom border dry 

 and as high as the knees of a tramping native ; the baggy folds 

 of it then give its wearer a grotesque and clumsy figure as they 

 bulge out over his hips and abdomen. The most favored and valu- 

 able parka is that one made out of alder-bark tanned reindeer-skin, 

 for winter use ; the hair is worn inside, next to the skin. For sum- 

 mer styles those fashioned out of the breasts of water-fowl, of mar- 

 mot- and mink-skins, are most common. The hood is never attached 

 to the parka in the warmer months of the year. It is a very capa- 

 cious pouch which, when not in service, is resting in thick folds 

 back of the head and upon the shoulders. It is ornamented in a 

 variety of ways, but usually a thick fringe of long-haired dog- or 

 fox-fur forms its border, and when drawn into position encircles 

 the wearer's face and gives it a wild and unkempt air. 



The only underwear which a Mahlemoot affects is limited to 

 that garment which we call a shirt, made of light skins or of cheap 

 cotton drillings ; if it is of skin, it is worn from father to son, and 

 becomes a real heirloom highly polished and redolent. Their trou- 

 sers are, for both sexes, a pair of thin skin or cotton drawers, puck- 

 ered at the ankles and bound about with the uppers of their 

 moccasons, or else enclosed by the tops to their reindeer-boots, 

 which are the prevalent covering for their feet. Such are the char- 

 acteristics of a costume worn by much more than half the entire 

 aboriginal population of Alaska ; but when we come to inspect 

 their dwellings we find a greater variety of housing than indexed in 

 dressing. 



A very great majority of the Innuits live in a house that out- 

 wardly resembles a circular mound of earth, seven or eight feet high, 

 and thirty or forty feet in circumference. It is overgrown with 



