124 MASKS AND LABRETS. 



sent a human face more or less distorted, from which the groove between 

 tin- two halves of the bill passes perpendicularly upward, and then 

 backward over the head, starting at the root of the nose belonging to 

 the human lace. 



In other cases, as for instance when the head of a seal is represented, 

 the carver not uufrequently represents, instead of the eye, on the other 

 half of the mask corresponding to that which is carved in a normal 

 manner, a small human face, perhaps on the broad grin, supplied with 

 hair in little locks pegged in, with teeth, ear-rings, or miniature labrets. 



The masks most commonly carved in this way are those representing 

 the head of a fox, wolf, or seal. It is a common thing in all the masks, 

 human and animal alike, to have the tongue loose, so that it will rattle 

 or move with the motions of the dance, or to have miniature arms, legs, 

 or wings attached to the mask at the margin, which are intended to 

 move in the same way. They are generally lashed to the stump of a 

 feather, the quill of which is pegged in and whittled to a point outside, 

 to which the appendage is attached and which gives it the necessary 

 flexibility. 



Masks of the kind above mentioned may be found in the National 

 Museum collection under the numbers 388G5, 38733, 38861, 48985, etc. 

 Most of these were collected by Mr. E. W. Nelson. The masks from 

 Point Barrow are particularly distinguished by an artistic finish and 

 the extremely faithful way in which they represent the features of the 

 Innuit of that vicinity, who bear a stronger resemblance to their Green- 

 land relations than do the Inuuit of Alaska further south, a circum- 

 stance doubtless due in part to the fact that their surroundings are 

 much more like those of Greenland than is the case with those of the 

 coasts of Norton Sound and Bristol Bay. 



Labrets are of comparatively rare occurrence on these masks, al- 

 though all the male members of the tribe wear them. 



INNUIT OF PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND OR CHUGACH BAY, ALASKA. 



An interesting series of rude and evidently very old and much weath- 

 ered masks was received some years ago by the National Museum from 

 the Alaska Commercial Company of San Francisco. They had been 

 collected by their agent at Port Etches, in response to a general order 

 from the company requesting such collections. 



These masks were carved out of nearly flat slab-like pieces of Sitka 

 spruce [Abies Sitkensis), and exhibit little or no artistic skill. They had 

 originally been ornamented with feathers and with rude attempts at 

 decoration with red argillaceous iron ore, the only source of the red 

 color known to these people before vermilion and other civilized paints 

 were introduced bv the whites. It is a curious fact that some one had 



