MURDOCH. ] PERSONAL HABITS. 42] 
The contents of this vessel, being mixed with feces, is not fit for 
tanning skins, ete., and is consequently thrown out doors. The men 
use a small tub (kuoywin) as a urinal, and the contents of this is care- 
fully saved. Though the interior of the house is thus kept clean, as 
much can not be said for its surroundings. All manner of rubbish and 
filth is simply thrown out upon the ground, without regard to decency 
or comfort, and this becomes exceedingly offensive when the snow melts 
in summer. The only scavengers are the dogs, who greedily devour old 
pieces of skin, refuse meat, and even feces. In regard to personal 
cleanliness, there is considerable difference between individuals. Some 
people, especially the poorer women and children, are not only careless 
about their clothes, going about dressed in ragged, greasy, filthy gar- 
ments, but seldom wash even their faces and hands, much less their 
whole persons. One of these women, indeed, was described by her 
grown-up daughter as “That woman with the black on her nose.” 
On the other hand most of the wealthier people appear to take pride 
in being neatly clad, and, except when actually engaged in some dirty 
work, always have their faces and hands, at least, scrupulously clean 
and their hair neatly combed. Even the whole person is sometimes 
washed in spite of the scarcity of water. Many are glad to get soap 
(izkikun) and use it freely. Lieut. Ray says that his two guides, 
Mivnialu and Apaidyao, at the end of a day’s march would never sit 
down to supper without washing their faces and hands with soap and 
water, and combing their hair, and I recollect that once, when I went over 
to the village to get a young man to start with Lieut. Ray on a boat 
journey, he would not start until he had hunted up a piece of soap and 
washed his face and hands. These people, of course, practice the 
usual Eskimo habit of washing themselves with freshly passed urine. 
This custom arises not only from the scarcity of water and the diffi- 
culty of heating it, but from the fact that the ammonia of the urine is 
an excellent substitute for soap in removing the grease with which the 
skin necessarily becomes soiled.! This fact is well known to our whale- 
men, who are in the habit of saving their urine to wash the oily clothes 
with. The same habit is practiced by the “* Chukches” of eastern Siberia.” 
All, however, get more or less shabby and dirty in the summer, when 
they are living in tents and boats. All are more or less infested 
with lice, and they are in the habit of searching each others’ heads for 
these, which they eat, after the fashion of so many other savages. They 
have also another filthy habit—that of eating the mucus from the nos- 
trils. A similar practice was noticed in Greenland by Egede,* who 
goes on quaintly to say: ‘‘ Thus they make good the old proverb, ‘ What 
drips from the nose falls into the mouth, that nothing may be lost.’” 
1Compare Dall, Alaska, p. 20. 
2See Nordenskiéld, Vega, vol. 2, p. 104. 
3Greenland, p. 127. 
