SS MASKS AND LABRETS. 



At Lituya Bay, in July, 1786, La Perouse observes: 



All, without exception; have in the lower lip at the level of the gums a perforation 

 as wide as the month, in which they wear a kind of wooden bowl without handles, 

 which rests against the gums, so that the lip stands out like a shelf in front, two or 

 three inches. (Atlas, plates 23 and 24.) The young girls have only a needle in the 

 lower lip; the married women alone have the right to the howls. We endeavored 

 several times to induce them to remove this ornament, which they did very reluct- 

 antly, seeming embarrassed without it. The lower lip falling on the chin presented 

 as disagreeable a spectacle as the first. (Voyage ant. du Monde de La Perouse. vol. 

 ii. pp. 200-202.) 



Dixon records the use of tbe kalushka, or large median labret, at Yak- 

 utat, Sitka Sound and Queen Charlotte Islands. He figures a remark- 

 ably large one, ornamented on its upper surface with a piece of Haliotis 

 shell, set in a copper rim, and also a woman of the Queen Charlotte 

 Islands, showing how they were worn. They were confined to the fairer 

 sex. (See Dixon's Voyage, pp. 172, 187, and 208. The plates are not 

 numbered.) 



The women of the Naas, Haida, and Tlinkit nations when discovered, 

 in general wore labrets; the men did not. The labret, inserted at the 

 first evidences of womanhood, was placed through the lower lip under 

 the nasal septum, and at first was a slender bone or wooden peg, shaped 

 like a small nail or long tack. After marriage the plug was gradually 

 enlarged, and in some very old women was of enormous size. I possess 

 one which measures two and a half inches long by two inches wide, and 

 half an inch thick near the margin. The groove around it is a quarter 

 of an inch deep, and the upper and lower surfaces are made concave 

 to diminish the weight. It is made of black slate, oval and much worn. 

 I have seen one other which was a little larger. They were made gen- 

 erally of wood, of a sort of black shale, or sometimes of white marble 

 or bone. At present a silver pin, manufactured out of coin by the In- 

 dians themselves, replaces the bone pin with unmarried girls. The large 

 labret, or kalushka, is entirely out of use, unless with some ancient 

 dame in some very remote settlement. Many of the women from Sitka 

 south have abandoned the practice entirely. 



Among the Inuuit of Chugach or Prince William Sound the males 

 formerly wore lateral labrets, like those of the Western Eskimo. A dried 

 mummy sent to the National Museum from this bay still showed the 

 apertures in the cheeks distinctly, though they were empty. 



Cook gives the following description of the labrets of the Innuit of 

 Prince William Sound and Cook's Inlet, a form which, so far as known, 

 has passed entirely out of use, and of which I am not aware that any 

 specimens are in existence. They were worn by both sexes. He says 

 the under lip was slit parallel with the mouth, the incision being com- 

 menced in infancy. In adults it was often two inches long. In it was 

 " inserted a flat, narrow ornament, made chiefly of a solid shell or bone, 

 cut into little narrow pieces like small teeth, almost down to the base 

 or thickest part, which has a small projecting bit at each end, which 



