90 MASKS AND LABRETS. 



The incisions in tlic lips and nose were made twenty days after birth 

 the end of the period of purification of mother and child. (Lisianski, 

 1. c , p. 201.) 



The Aleuts, when first known by the whites, wore labrets, both men 

 and women. These are figured by Cook and others, and for the males 

 at least were cleat-shaped, with banging beads attached iu many cases, 

 and the incision was median. Two masks, used in dances, are here repro- 



du 1 (Plate XXVIII, Figs. 71-72) from the illustrations to Billings's 



voyage,' which show the form of the labret at that time. Cook de- 

 scribes the median labrets of the Aleuts and figures them. (See official 

 edition of his third voyage, ii, p. 417 plates, 48, 49.) They were worn 

 by both sexes. He states, however (p. 509, 1. a), that it was as rare at 

 Unalashka to see a man wearing one as to see a woman without one. 

 It is evident from this remark that the practice of labretifery among 

 these people lay primarily with the women, as among the Tlinkit and 

 other tribes to the south and east. This was iu 1778. 



In the voyage of Captain Saricheff (with Billings, 1785-'90), published 

 by Schnoor, in St. Petersburg, in 1802, consisting of two volumes, in the 

 Russian language, and a folio atlas of fifty-one plates, he illustrates both 

 masks and labrets. He gives an excellent plate of a Kadiak woman 

 wearing a labret much like that figured here (Plate XXVIII, fig. 71 

 A), and with a broad, flat strip of bone through the nasal septum. The 

 Kadiak man is represented with two rounded studs inserted side by 

 side through the lower lip under the nose, and a rounded bone like a 

 quill through the nose (vol. ii, p. 38). An Unalashka woman is repre- 

 sented with beads or studs set in the whole rim of the outer ear, two 

 strings with beads on them hanging to the nasal septum, and lastly, with 

 a hole below the outer corner of the mouth on each side, from which 

 projects a labret of a kind I have seen no other record of. These are 

 apparently of bone and resemble a dart-head, but are curved, and with 

 barbs only on oue side. In Saricheff s figure they stand out laterally, 

 with the curve convex upward and the notches on the concave side (vol. 

 ii, pp. 16-1S). This explains the nature of the objects found in the 

 Kagamil cave and figured by me in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- 

 edge, 318, Plate 10, figs. 17260 a, b, and c, and referred to on page 23 

 as problematical. The Unalashkan man has no ornaments iu nose, ears, 

 or lips, according to Saricheff's figures (vol. ii, p. 16). Another plate 

 showing both sexes full length agrees with the preceding. It is not 

 evident how these labrets were kept in, but they might have been 

 l/v-.hed to the ends of a thin strip of whalebone, as the specimens in 

 the Smithsonian collection were arranged to be lashed to something. 



Saner, in his account of Billings' voyage, figures a man and woman 

 of Unalashka wearing the slender, cleat-shaped labret, like that figured 

 by Cook from the same locality (Plate V). He also figures (Plate VI) 



■An account of a geographical and astronomical expedition, etc., made by Commo- 

 doie Joseph Billings, 1765-'94, by Martin Sauer, London, 1802. 



