142 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
in either sex is rare. 1 do not remember ever seeing a bald woman, and 
there were only two bald men at the two villages. Neither of these 
men was very old. 
Head-bands.—Some of the men and boys wear across the forehead a 
string of large blue glass beads, sometimes sewed on a strip of deer- 
skin. Occasionally, also a fillet is worn made of the skin of the head 
of a fox or a dog, with the nose coming in the middle of the forehead. 
Such head-dresses are by no means common and seem to be highly 
prized, as they were never offered for sale. MacFarlane (MS.) speaks 
of a sunilar head-dress worn at the Anderson River, “ generally made 
of the skin of the fore part of the head skins of wolves, wolverines, and 
marmots. Very often, however, a string of beads is made use of in- 
stead.” Another style of head-dress is the badge of a whaleman, and 
is worn only when whaling (and, I believe, at the ceremonies in the 
spring preparatory to the whaling). This seems to be very highly 
prized, and is, perhaps, “looked upon with superstitious regard.” ! 
None were ever offered for sale and we had only two or three oppor- 
tunities of seeing it. It consists of a broad fillet of mountain-sheep 
skin, with pendants of flint, jasper, or crystal, rudely flaked into the 
shape of a whale (see under ‘“Amulets,” where specimens are described 
and figured), one in the middle of the brow and one over each ear. 
Some of them are also fringed with the incisor teeth of the mountain 
sheep attached by means of a small hole drilled through the end of the 
root, as on the dancing cap (see under ‘Games and Pastimes”). The cap- 
tain and harpooner of a whaling crew which I saw starting out in the 
spring of 1882 each wore one of these fillets. The harpooner’s had 
only the whale pendants, but the captain’s was also fringed with teeth. 
This ornament closely resembles the fillet fringed with deevr’s teeth, 
observed by Capt. Parry at Iglulik,? which “‘was understood to be 
worn on the head by men, though we did not learn on what occasions.” 
Barrings (négolu).—Nearly all the women and girls perforate the 
lobes of the ears and wear earrings. The commonest pattern is a little 
hook of ivory to which are attached pendants, short strings of beads, 
etc. Large, oblong, dark-blue beads and bugles are specially desired 
for this purpose. Cheap brass or “ brummagem” earrings are some- 
times worn nowadays. The fashion in earrings seems to have changed 
somewhat since Dr, Simpson’s time, as I do not remember ever having 
seen the long strings of beads hanging across the breast or looped up 
behind as he describes them.’ At present, one earring is much more 
frequently worn than a pair. There are in the collection two pairs of 
the ivory hooks for earrings, which, though made for sale, are of the 
ordinary pattern. Of these No. 89387 [1540] (Fig. 90) will serve as 
the type. They are of coarse, white walrus ivory. 
‘See Dr. Simpson, op. cit., p. 243. Compare also Brodbeck, ‘* Nach Osten” (p.23). Speaking of ‘ein 
Kopf- oder Stirnband,” he says: ‘ Vielleicht gilt es ihnen als eine Art von Zauberschitzmittel, denn 
es ist um kein Geld zu haben. Driéngt man sie, so sagen sie wohl, es sei nicht ihr eigen.”’ 
2Second Voy., p. 498 and Fig. 7, pl. opposite p. 548. 
3Op. cit., p. 241. 
