MURDOCH. ]} LABRETS. 145 
resembles the plugs figured by Dall from Norton Sound,! but lacks the 
hole in the tip for the transverse wooden peg, which is not used at Point 
Barrow. One youth was wearing the final size of plugs when we landed 
at the station. These were brought to a point like the tip of a walrus 
tusk, and had exactly the appearance of the tusks of a young walrus 
when they first protrude beyond the lip. The labrets worn at Point 
Barrow at the present day are usually of two patterns. One is a large, 
flat, circular disk about 1$ inches in diameter, with a flat stud on the 
back something like that of a sleevebutton, and the other a thick 
cylindrical plug about 1 inch long, and one-half inch in diameter, with the 
protruded end rounded and the other expanded into an oblong flange, 
presenting a slightly curved surface to the gum. These plug labrets 
are the common. fashion for everyday wear, and at the present day, 
as in Dr. Simpsows time, are almost without exception made of stone. 
Granite or syenite, porphyry, white marble, and sometimes coal (rarely 
jade) are used for this purpose. 
One of the Nunatatmiun wore a glass cruet-stopper for a labret, and 
many natives of Utkiavwin took the glass stopples of Worcestershire 
sauce bottles, which were thrown away at the station, and inserted them 
in the labret holes for everyday wear, sometimes grinding the round 
top into an oblong stud. There is one specimen of the plug labret 
in the collection. Labrets of all kinds are very highly prized, and it 
was almost impossible to obtain them.? Though we repeatedly asked 
for them and promised to pay a good price, genuine labrets that had 
been worn or that were intended for actual use were very rarely offered 
for sale, though at one time a large number of roughly made models or 
imitations were brought in. The single specimen of the plug labret 
(tu’te) is No, 89700 [1163] (figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, 
Pl. v, Fig. 3). It is a cylindrical plug of hard, bright green stone 
(jade or hypochlorite), 1-1 inches long and 0-6 in diameter at the outer 
end, which is rounded off, tapering slightly inward 
and expanded at the base into an elliptical disk 1-2 
inches long and 0-9 broad, slightly concave on the 
surface which rests against the teeth and gum. The 
specimen is old and of a material very unusual at 
Point Barrow. Fig. 92, No. 89719 [1166], from Nu- 
witk, may also be called a plug labret, but is of a 
very unusual pattern, and said to be very old. It 
has an oblong stud of walrus ivory surmounted by 
a large, transparent, slightly greenish glass bead, 16. 92.—Labret of beads 
on top of which is a small, translucent, sky-blue eer 
bead. The beads are held on by a short wooden peg, running through 
the perforations of the beads and a hole drilled through the ivory, 
There is a somewhat similar labret in the Museum collection (No. 48202) 
1 Alaska, p. 140. 
2The men whom Thomas Simpson met at or near Barter Island sold their labrets, but demanded a 
hatchet or a dagger for a pair of them (Narrative, p. 119). 
9 ETH 10 
