146 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
from Cape Prince of Wales, also very old. It is surmounted by a single 
oblong blue bead. 
Lsaw but one other labret made of whole beads, and this had three 
good sized oval blue beads, in a cluster, projecting from the hole. It 
was worn by a man from Nuwitk. This may be compared with a speci- 
men from the Mackenzie district, No. 7714, to which two similar beads 
are attached in the same way. The disk labret is the pattern worn on 
full-dress occasions, seldom when working or hunting. One disk and 
one plug labret are frequently worn. Disk labrets are made of stone, 
sometimes of syenite or porphyry, but the most fashionable kind is made 
of white marble, and has half of a large, blue glass bead cemented on 
the center of the disk. These are as highly prized as they were in Dr. 
Simpson’s time, and we consequently did not succeed in procuring a 
specimen. 
I obtained one pair of syenite disk labrets, No. 56716 [197] (figured in 
Point Barrow Rept., Ethnology, Pl. v, Fig. 2). Each is a flat circular 
disk (1-7 and 1-6 inches in diameter, respectively) of rather coarse-grained 
black and white syenite, ground very smooth, but not polished. On the 
back of each is an elliptical stud, like that of a sleeve-button, 1-2 and 
1-1 inches long and 0-8 and 0-6 broad, respectively. 
Fig. 93, No. 2083, is one of the blue and white disks said to come from 
the Anderson River. This is introduced to represent those worn at 
Point Barrow, which are of precisely the same pattern. The disk is of 
white marble, 14 inches in diameter, and in the center of it is cemented, 
apparently with oil dregs, 
half of a transparent blue 
glass bead, three-quarters of 
an inch in diameter, around 
the middle of which is cut a 
shallow groove. Similar mar- 
ble disks without the bead 
TRG BE JECT PRIS HE ete rats) Eason LENG are sometimes worn. These 
blue and white labrets appear to be worn from Cape Bathurst to the 
Kaniag peninsula, including the Diomede Islands (see figure on p. 
140 of Dall’s Alaska). There are specimens in the Museum from the 
Anderson River and from the north shore of Norton Sound and we 
saw them worn by the Nunatatmiun, as well as the natives of Point 
Barrow and Wainwright Inlet. The beads, which are larger than those 
sold by the American traders, were undoubtedly obtained from Siberia, 
as Kotzebue, in 1816, found the people of the sound which bears his name 
wearing labrets ‘“‘ornamented with blue glass beads.”! The high value 
set on these blue-bead labrets has been mentioned by Franklin? and T, 
Simpson,’ as well as by Dr. Simpson.‘ The last named seems to be the 
' Voyage, vol. 1, p. 210. Labrets of precisely the same pattern as the one described are figured in the 
frontispiece of this volume. (See also Choris, Voyage Pittoresque). 
22d Exp., p. 118. 
* Narrative, p. 119. 
4 Op. cit., p. 239. 
