144 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
to take a seal entitles a boy to wear labrets, as he suggests. We knew 
a number of boys who were excellent seal hunters and even able to 
manage a kaiak, but none had their lips pierced under the age of 14 or 
15, when they may be supposed to have reached manhood. ‘The in- 
cisions are at first only large enough to admit a flat-headed pin of wal- 
rus ivory, about the diameter of. a crow quill, worn with the head rest- 
ing against the gum. These are soon replaced by a slightly stouter 
pair, and these again by stouter ones, until the holes are stretched to a 
diameter of about one-half inch, when they are ready for the labrets. 
We heard of no special ceremonies or festivals connected with the 
making of these incisions, such as Dall observed at Norton Sound,! but 
in the one case Where the operation was performed at the village of 
Utkiavwin during our stay, we learned that it was done by a man out- 
side of the family of the youth operated upon. We were also informed 
that the incisions must be made with a little lancet of slate. The em- 
ployment of an implement of ancient form and obsolete material for this 
purpose indicates, as Dall says in the passage referred to aboye, “some 
greater significance than mere ornamentation.” 
The collection contains two specimens of such laneets. No. 89721 
[1153] (figured in Rept. Point Barrow Expedition, Ethnology, Pl. v, 
Fig. 4) is the type. A little blade of soft gray slate is carefully inclosed 
in a neat case of cottonwood. The blade is lanceolate, 
1:3 inches long, 0-6 broad, and 0-1 thick, with a short, 
broad tang. The faces are somewhat rough, and ground 
with a broad bevel to very sharp cutting edges. The 
case is made of two similar pieces of wood, flat on one 
side and rounded on the other, so that when put together 
they make a rounded body 3 inches long, slightly flat- 
tened, and tapering toward the rounded ends, of which 
Fig. 91.—Plug for OME IS Somewhat larger than the other. Round each 
paige labret end is a narrow, deep, transverse groove for a string to 
hold the two parts together. A shallow median groove 
connects these cross grooves on one piece, which is hollowed out on the 
flat face into a rough cavity of a Shape and size suitable to receive the 
blade, which is produced into a narrow, deep groove at the point, prob- 
ably to keep the point of the blade from being dulled by touching the 
wood. The other piece, which serves as a cover, has merely a rough, 
shallow, oval depression near the middle. The whole is evidently very 
old, and the case is browned with age and dirt. 
No, 89579 [1200] is a similar blade of reddish purple slate, mounted 
ina rough haft of bone. Fig. 91, No. 89715 [1211], is one of a pair of 
bone models, made for sale, of the ivory plugs used for enlarging the 
holes for the labrets, corresponding in size to about the second pair used. 
It is roughly whittled out of a coarse-grained compact bone, and closely 
1 Alaska, p. 141. 
