MURDOCH. ] NEEDLES AND THIMBLES. BY) 
meant for sewing boat skins. With this needle belongs a peculiar large 
bone or ivory thimble. The remaining needles are all very much alike, 
though some are more roughly made than the others. Three of them 
have the butt square instead of rounded, and half of them, including 
some which are undoubtedly old, are four-sided at the point like a gloy- 
er’s needle. The longest is 3 inches long and the shortest 1:4 inches, 
but the commonest length is about 2 or 24 inches. Similar bone needles 
are mentioned by various authors.! 
Nearly all the women now use ordinary metal thimbles, obtained in 
trade, but they wear them in the old-fashioned way, on the tip of the 
forefinger. Some of the older women, however, still prefer the ancient 
leather thimble. There are two patterns of these: one intended for the 
fore-finger only, and the other of such a shape that it may also be worn 
on the other fingers as a guard against chafing in pulling stout thread 
through thick leather. It is often so used at the present day. 
We collected three of the first-mentioned pattern, which is represented 
by Fig. 326) (No. 89396 [1202, 1246] ). It is made by cutting out a narrow 
ring of raw sealskin 0-7 inch in diameter, with a circular flap 0-5 inch 
in diameter on the outside of the ring and a corresponding one on the 
inside of the same size, cut out of the middle of the ring. The flaps 
are doubled over so as to make a pad on the inside of the forefinger 
when the tip of the latter is inserted into the ring. The butt of the 
needle presses against this pad. 
The third thimble, which belongs with the needlecase (No. 89371 
[1276]), is of precisely the same form and dimensions. 
There appeared to be little if any variation among those which we 
saw. Capt. Lyon? figures two similar thimbles from Iglulik, which 
are described on page 537 of the same work as being made of leather. 
The flaps, however, seem to be only semicircular and not folded over, so 
that the shield consists of only one thickness of leather. 
A similar thimble with the flap also not folded is used at Cumberland 
Gulf. 
The other pattern, of which we brought home nine specimens, is rep- 
resented by No. 89389 [1191], which belongs with the set of bone needles 
ofthe samenumber. It isa tube, open at both ends, one of which is larger 
than the other, made by bending round a strip of split walrus hide and 
sewing the ends together. It is 0-4 inch long and 2-1 in circumference 
at the larger end. It is worn smooth with handling, and impregnated 
with grease and dirt and marked with small pits where it has been 
pressed against the butt of the needle in use. 
Four other old thimbles (No. 893593 [1194], from Utkiavwin, are made 
'Formerly they used the bones of fishes or the very fine bones of birds instead of needles. Crantz, 
vol. 1, p. 136. 
“Their own clumsy needles of bone,” Parry, Second Voy., p. 537 and pl. opposite p. 548, Fig. 11. 
Kumlien also speaks of ‘steel needles or bone ones made after the same pattern’ at Cumberland Gulf 
(Contributions, p. 25). 
?Parry, Second Voy., pl. opposite p. 550, Fig. 25. 
3 Boas, Central Eskimo, p. 524, Fig. 473 and Kumlien, Contributions, p. 25. 
