THE INDIANS OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. 257 



of a pulley to keep it in place. Each succeeding year a larger and 

 larger lip-block is inserted, the effect being in old age to drag the lip 

 down, exposing the discolored and worn teeth, and forming altogether, 

 to the European, a disgusting spectacle, but to them a thing of beauty 

 and a token of rank, maturity, and social position. In running, it flops 

 up and down between the nose and chin in a very undignified manner. 

 It is as embarrassing to an Indian woman to be seen without her labret as 

 for a European woman to be seen with uncovered bosom.* Female 

 slaves were invariably forbidden the privilege of wearing them. The 

 size of the labret measures the social importance and wealth of tlie 

 wearer. The custom is now dying out, but is still seen amongst the 

 older Haida women, the labrets being principally made of wood. Form- 

 erly it was the custom to ornament them with copper and inlay them 

 with haliotis shell by way of beautifying them. They varied in size 

 from 4 inches long by 3 broad down to small buttons to wear in the 

 first incision. Kow that this custom is dying out, a form of it is seen 

 in the piercing of the lip with a small hole and the insertion of a silver 

 tube or bar (Plate xi). 



Piercing the nose. — Both sexes pierce the septum of the nose and in- 

 sert ornaments, originally of copper, bone, wood, or haliotis shell, but 

 now of silver, such as rings or bars or tufts of red woolen yarn, with 

 pendent shark's teeth. The Tlingit wear a silver or bone ring through 

 the nose, as seen in several accompanying plates, but formerly the cus- 

 tom cf wearing an ivory stick or pin obtained in some localities. 



Piercing the ears. — Both sexes pierce the lobe of the ear and wear or- 

 naments as in the nose. Around the rim of the ear additional holes are 

 l)ierced. Men of rank have as many as five or six of these latter. For- 

 merly, according to Dawson,t " these held little ornaments formed of 

 plates of haliotis shell, backed with thin sheet copper or the small teeth 

 of the fin- whale." This custom is also fast dying out. Amongst the 

 older men and women one still sees these practices, but in a modified 

 and less pronounced form. 



-Tattooing. — This practice is found rarely among the Tlingit, if at all, 

 and only occasionally amongst the Tsimshian, although it crops out 

 here and there, in a very mild form, all along the coast. With the 

 Haida alone, of all the Indian stocks, tattooing is a fine art, and is com- 

 mon to both sexes. The figures are conventional representations of 

 their totems, pricked in charcoal, lignite, or black pigment, and serve to 

 identify the individual with his or her totem. The men have these de 

 signs tattooed on their breasts, on their backs between their shonlders, 

 on the front part of their legs below the thighs, on the shins below the 

 knee, and on the back of the fore-arms. Occasionally the men also have 

 these designs on the cheek and back of the hands, although rarely seen 



* La P6rou8e, Voyage, torn, ii, p. 2^6, t DJ^WQon, Report, B, p, X09i 



H, MIkS, I42j pt, 2-^X7 



