416 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
without bringing it out into the air. Children are carried in this way 
until they are able to walk and often later. 
A large child sits astride of his mother’s back, with one leg under 
each of her arms, and has a little suit of clothes in which he is dressed 
when the mother wishes to set him down. When the child is awake, 
this hood is thrown back and the child raised quite high so that he looks 
over his mother’s shoulder, who then covers her head with a cloth or 
something of the sort. The woman appears to be very little incon- 
venienced by her burden, and goes about her work as usual, and the 
child does not seem to be disturbed by her movements. The little girls 
often act as nurses and carry the infants around on their backs, in the 
same way. Itis no unusual sight to see a little girl of ten or twelve 
carrying a well grown, heavy child in this way. 
This custom or a very similar one seems to prevail among the Eskimo 
generally. In Greenland, the nurse wears a garment especially de- 
signed for carrying the child, an amaut, i. e., a garment that is so wide 
in the back as to hold a child, which generally tumbles in it quite 
naked and is accommodated with no other swaddling clothes or cradle.! 
In East Greenland, according to Capt. Holn, ‘‘Saa lenge Bérnene ere 
smaa, beeres dei det fri paa Moderens Ryg.”? 
Petitot’s description of the method of carrying the children in the 
Mackenzie district is so naive that it deserves to be quoted entire.’ 
Les meres qui allaitent portent une jaquette ample et serrée autour des reins par 
une ceinture. Elles yenfermentleurcheére progéniture qu’elles peuvent, par ce moyen, 
allaiter sans l’exposer 4 un froid qui lui serait mortel. Ces jeunes enfants sont sans 
aucun vétement jusqu’a Page d’environ deux ans. Quant aux incongruités que ces 
petites créatures peuvent se permettre sur le dos de leur mére, qui leur sert de calo- 
rifere, ’amour maternel, le méme chez tous les peuples, les endure patiemment et 
avec indifférence. 
At Fury and Hecla Straits, according to Parry*, the children are 
carried in the hood, which is made specially large on purpose, but 
sometimes also on the back, as at Point Barrow. The enormous hoods 
of the Eskimo women in Labrador also served to hold the child. The 
same custom prevails at Cumberland Gulf.* In some localities, for in- 
stance the north shore of Hudson’s Straits, where the woman wear very 
long and loose boots, the children are said to be carried in these.® Frank- 
lin? refers to the same custom “east of the Mackenzie River.” The 
Siberian children, however, are dressed in regular swaddling clothes 
of deerskin, with a sort of diaper of dried moss.* 
We never heard of a single case of infanticide, and, indeed, children 
1Crantz, vol. 1, p. 138. See also Egede, p. 131, and the picture in Rink’s Tales, etc., opposite p. 8. 
2Geografisk Tidskrift, vol. 8, p. 91. 
3 Monographie, ete., p. xv. 
4Second Voyage, p. 495. 
6 Kumlien, Contributions, p. 24. 
6 See Ellis, Voyage, ete., p. 136, and plate opposite p. 132. 
7 Second Ex., p. 226. 
8 Nordenskiold, Vega, vol. 2, p. 101. 
