140 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
natives of Smith Sound, though the custom is falling into disuse among 
the Eskimo who have much intercourse with the whites.! 
The simple pattern of straight, slightly diverging lines on the chin 
seems to prevail from the Mackenzie district to Kadiak, and similar 
chin lines appear always to form part of the more ela- 
borate patterns, sometimes extending to the arms and 
other parts of the body, in fashion among the eastern 
Eskimo? and those of Siberia, St. Lawrence Island, and 
Ca ee the Diomedes. 
withordinary tattoo, Fig. 88, from asketch made on the spot by the writer, 
ing. shows the Point Barrow pattern. 
Painting—On great occasions, such as dances, ete., or when going 
whaling, the face is marked with a broad streak of black lead, put on 
with the finger, and usually running obliquely across the nose or one 
cheek.’ Children, when dressed up in new clothes, are also frequently 
marked in this way. This may be compared with the ancient custom 
among the people of Kadiak of painting their faces ‘before festivities 
or games and before any important undertaking, such as the crossing 
of a wide strait or arm of the sea, the sea-otter chase, etc.” +4 
HEAD ORNAMENTS. 
Method of wearing the hairy.—The men and boys wear their hair combed 
down straight over the forehead and cut off square across in front, but 
hanging in rather long locks on the sides, so as to cover the ears. There 
is always a small circular tonsure on the crown of the head, and a strip 
is generally clipped down to the nape of the neck. (See Fig. 89, from 
a sketch from life by the writer.) The natives believe that this elip- 
ping of the back of the head prevents snow blindness in the spring. 
The people of the Mackenzie district have a different theory. ‘La large 
1 Bessels, Naturalist, vol. 18, p. 875 (Smith Sound): Egede, p. 1382, and Crantz, vol. 1, p. 138, already 
given up by the Christian Greenlanders (Greenland); Holm, Geogr. Tids., vol. 8, p. 88, still practiced 
regularly in east Greenland; Parry, Ist Voyage, p. 282 (Baffin Land); 2d Voyage, p. 498 (Iglulik) ; 
Kumlien, Contrib., p. 26 (Cumberland Gulf, aged women chiefly); Boas, ‘‘Central Eskimo,” p. 561; 
Chappell, ‘‘ Hudson Bay,” p. 60 (Hudson Strait); Back, Journey, ete., p. 289 (Great Fish River); Frank- 
lin, 1st Exped., vol. 2, p. 183 (Coppermine River); 2d Exped., p. 126 (Point Sabine); Petitot, Mono- 
graphie, ete., p. xv (Mackenzie district) ; Dall, ‘‘Alaska,”’ pp. 140, 381 (Norton Sound, Diomede Islands, 
and Plover Bay); Petroff, Report, etc., p. 139 (Kadiak); Lisiansky, Voyage, p. 195 (Kadiak in 1805, 
‘the fair sex were also fond of tattooing the chin, breasts, and back, but this again is much out of 
fashion”); Nordenskiéld, Vega, vol. 2, pp. 99, 100, 251, and 252, with figures (Siberia and St. Lawrence 
Island); Krause brothers, Geographische Blatter, vol. 5, pp.4,5 (East Cape to Plover Bay); Hooper, 
Tents, etc.. p. 37, ‘* Women were tattooed on the chin in diverging lines" (Plover Bay); Rosse, Cruise 
of the Corwin, p. 35, fig. on p. 36 (St. Lawrence Island). 
Frobisher's account, being the earliest on record, is worth quoting: ‘' * * * The women are 
marked on the face with blewe streekes downe the cheekes and round about the eies” (p.621). * * * 
‘Also, some of their women race their faces proportionally, as chinne, cheekes, and forehead, and the 
wristes of their hands, whereupon they lay a colour, which continueth dark azurine” (p. 627). Hak- 
luyt’s Voyages, etc., 1589. 
* Holm (East Greenland) says: ‘‘et Paar korte Streger paa Hagen" (Geogr. Tids. vol. 8, p. 88). 
’Compare Kotzebue’s Voy., vol. 3, p. 296, where Chamisso describes the natives of St. Lawrence 
say, Siberia, as having large quantities of fine graphite, with which they painted their faces. 
4 Petroff Report, ete., p. 139. 
