370 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
The more southern Eskimo of Alaska are in the habit of using in 
their dances very elaborate and highly ornamented and painted masks, 
of which the National Museum possesses a very large collection. The 
ancient Aleuts also used masks.) On the other hand, no other Eski- 
mo, save those of Alaska,ever use masks in their performances, as far 
as Lean learn, with the solitary exception of the people of Baftin Land, 
where a mask of the hide of the bearded seal is worn on certain occa- 
sions.2 Nordenskiéld saw one wooden mask among the people near the 
Vegws winter quarters, but learned that this had been brought from 
3ering Strait, and probably from America.* 
The masks appear to become more numerous and more elaborate the 
nearer we get to the part of Alaska inhabited by the Indians of the 
Tlinket stock, who, as is well known employ, in their ceremonies re- 
markably elaborate wooden masks and headdresses. It may be sug- 
gested that this custom of using masks came from the influence of 
these Indians, reaching in the simple form already described as far as 
Point Barrow, but not beyond.* With these masks was worn a gorget 
or breast-plate, consisting of a half-moon shaped piece of board about 
18 inches long, painted with rude figures of men and animals, and 
slung about the neck. We brought home three of these gorgets. all 
old and weathered. 
No. 89818 [1132], Fig. 372a, has been selected as the type of the gor- 
get (sikimin). It is made of spruce, is 18:5 inches long, and has two 
beeckets of stout sinew braid, one to go round the neck and the other 
round the body under the wearer’s arms. The figures are all painted 
on the front face. In the middle is a man painted with red ocher; all 
the rest of the figures are black and probably painted with soot. The 
man with his arms outstretched standson a large whale, represented as 
spouting. He holds a small whale ineach hand. At his rightis asmall 
cross-Shaped object which perhaps represents a bird, then a man facing 
toward the left and darting a harpoon with both hands, and a bear 
facing tothe left. On the left of the red man are two wmiaks with five 
men in each, a whale nearly effaced, and three of the cross-shaped ob- 
jects already mentioned. Below them, also, freshly drawn with a hard, 
blunt lead pencil or the point of a bullet, are a whale, an umiak, and a 
three-cornered object the nature of which I can not make out. 
Fig. 372b (No. 56493 [266] from Utkiavwin) is a similar gorget, which 
has evidently been long exposed to the weather, perhaps at the ceme- 
tery, as the figures are all effaced except in the middle, where it was 
probably covered by a mask as in Fig. 367 (No. 89817 [855] from the 
same village). There seems to have been a red border on the serrated 
edge. In the middle is the same red man as before standing on the 
1See Dall, Alaska, p. 389, and contributions to N. A. Ethn., vol. 1, p. 90. 
2See Kumlien, Contributions, p. 43. Kumlien says merely ‘‘a mask of skins.’ Dr. Boas is my au- 
thority for the statement that the skin of the bearded seal is used. 
3 Vega, vol. 2, p. 21. 
4See also Dall’s paper in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 67-203, where 
the subject of mask-wearing is very thoroughly discussed in its most important relations 
