ball.] LABRETIFERY. H9 



supports it when put into" the incision, the dentate edge of the labret 

 then appearing outside. Others have the lower lip " perforated into 

 separate holes, and then the ornament consists of as many distinct shelly 

 studs, whose points are pushed through these holes." The heads of 

 the studs appeared within the lower lip, almost like a supplementary 

 outer row of teeth. He figures the latter kind, in each case four studs. 

 Beads were often hung to the points of these studs. At Cook's Inlet 

 the labrets were exactly like the above described ones from Prince Will- 

 iam Sound, but less commcnly worn. (See Voyage, vol. ii, pp. 369, 370, 

 pi. 40, 17, 1778.) 



In speaking of the women seen in Prince William Sound, Maurelle, in 

 1779, descibes them as distinguished by pieces of glass or other material 

 which are placed through the lips on each side of the mouth in a man- 

 ner similar to the median labret of the women at Bucareli (1. c, p. 310). 



In regard to the practice of labretifery at Kodiak, it seems to have 

 rapidly diminished after the Eussian occupation, since, in 1805, Langs- 

 dorfl' observed (ii, p. G3) that the slit in the under lip was even then 

 rarely seen, while twenty -five years before it was universal. 



It has been mentioned above that the inhabitants of Kodiak and the other Aleutian 

 Islands are in the practice of slitting the under lip parallel with the mouth and in- 

 troducing into the opening ornaments of glass beads, muscle shells, or enamel. The 

 Kaluschian women [of Sitka Sound] carry this idea of ornament much farther. When 

 a girl has attained her thirteenth or fourteenth year a small opening is made directly 

 in the center of the under lip, into which is run at first a thick wire, then a double 

 wooden button or a small cylinder made somewhat thicker at each end. This open- 

 ing once made is by degrees enlarged, till at length it will contain an oval or elliptic 

 piece of board or sort of small wooden platter, the outward edge of which has a rim 

 to make it hold faster in the opening. The women thus look as if they had large flat 

 wooden spoons growing in the flesh of their under lips. 



This ornament, so horrible in its appearance to us Europeans, this truly singular 

 idea of beauty, extends along the northwest coast of America from about the fiftieth 

 to the sixtieth degree of latitude. All the women, without distinction, have it, but 

 the circumference of the piece of board seems to mark the age or rank of the wearer. 

 The usual size is from two to three inches long, about an inch and a half or two inches 

 broad, and at the utmost half an inch thick ; but the wives of the chiefs have it much 

 longer and broader. I have even seen ladies of very high rank with this ornament 

 full five inches long and three broad, and Mr. Dwolf, who is very far from being likely 

 to exaggerate, and who is well acquainted with all this part of the coast, from hav- 

 ing so often traded hither for sea-otter skins, assured me that at Chatham Strait he had 

 seen an old woman, the wife of a chief, whose lip ornament was so large that by a 

 peculiar motion of her under lip she could almost conceal her whole face with it. 

 (Langsdorff's Travels, vol. ii, p. 114, 1805.; 



According to Lisianski : 



The people of Kadiak are very fond of ornaments. Both sexes pierce the ears all 

 round and embellish them with beads. The women also wear beads on the neck, 

 arms, and feet. Formerly they wore strings of beads suspended from apertures in the 

 lower lip, or else placed in these apertures small bones resembling a row of artificial 

 teeth, and had besides a bone passed through the gristle of the nose ; while the men 

 had a stone or bone four inches long in a cut made in the lower lip (PI. iii, Fig. 

 d), but these embellishments are now (1805) seldom seen. The fair sex were also 

 fond of tattooing the chin, breasts, and back; but this again is much out of fashion. 

 (Lisianski's Voyage, London, Booth, 1814, p. 195.) 



