465 



exactly the same thickness (0"5 cm) all over. At the bottom of 

 the buckle there is an elongated narrow horizontal slit, parallel 

 with the basal edge, large enough to permit of a flat thong 

 being drawn through. It was made by first boring two holes 

 in the same line and then cutting away the intervening piece 

 of bone. In the middle of the buckle there is a large hole 

 (tilled up with dried clay or mud), the irregular form of which 

 is probably merely due to its having first been bored wrong 

 in the buckle, and the error having been rectified by boring a 

 fresh hole which ran into the edge of the first. Above it there 

 are three smaller holes, the nether- 

 most of which is connected with the 

 main hole by a little groove for the 

 countersinking of the thong which was 

 passed through from hole to hole. 



This buckle is much like those 

 which are attached to the upper edge 

 of the circular kaiak skirt used by the 

 kaiakers both in West Greenland and 

 at Ammassalik ^1, and which below is 

 lashed round the ring in the man-hole 

 of the kaiak, while above it reaches 

 about to the height of the man's mid- 

 riff, when it is drawn tight; for this latter purpose there is 

 either a pair of braces (a chain of bone beads) over the man's 

 shoulders attached at the back to the border of the kaiak skirt 

 and in front carried through one or two buckles in the front 

 of tlie skirt; or two strings of beads hang down from the man's 

 shoulders, fastened under the neck on his kaiak jacket; in some 

 kaiaks these strings are gathered together in the buckle at the 

 upper edge of the kaiak skirt; in others they are kept apart and 

 attached each to a separate buckle, in which case each of the two 

 buckles is fixed in front of the skirt on either side of the centre. 

 ^) Holm PI. 20. 



Fig. 54. Buckle of bone. 

 С Tobin. 4i. 



