Ethnographical collections from East Greenland. 



581 



was for the first time mentioned by Ellis who also gives an illustra- 

 tion from Resolution or Savage Island (near the entrance to Hudson 

 Straits from the Davis Straits, corner of Baffin Land)^). The woman 

 is seen from behind, her empty hood hangs downwards, the large 

 flap of the frock going down to her ankles, with the enormous boots 

 showing beyond the bottom of the frock and from the mouth of 

 the left boot the head and arm of a child. The women here have 

 thus used either hoods or boot-pouches for carrying the children. 

 Ellis writes: "Their coats are larger and 

 wider at the shoulders (than the men's) 

 in order that they may the more easily 

 carry their children on their backs. 

 Their boots are also much wider and 

 generally distended by small pieces of 

 "fish-bone" (i. e. hoops or stays of 

 whalebone) because they put the child 

 down there when they want the arms 

 free, until they can again place it in 

 the hood." 



According to Boas^) the Akudnir- 

 miut women, a northern tribe living 

 near the Davis Straits on Baffin Land, 

 have boots of a similar shape ("enorm- 

 ous boots with a flap reaching up to 

 the hip"). In the same connection he 

 cites Parry who in 1822 had observed 

 the same custom further west, almost 

 at the same latitude, but on the other 

 side of Baffin Land. The custom has 

 undoubtedly prevailed over a broad 

 belt at about 70° Lat. from the Davis 

 Straits westwards across the islands north of Hudson Bay, through 

 the Straits up to Cape Bathurst where Franklin coming from the 

 west met them for the first time^). This mode with the wide ankle- 



Fig. 303. Ulaneq with her baby. 

 (G. Holm phot.). 



^) Ellis (1750) PI. VI, cf. p. 142. On this illustration two women are seen, one of 

 them sitting down; both have the above-mentioned wide boots. On PI. IX on 

 the other hand a woman is seen with tight kamiks. Cf. Engl. ed. (1758) PI. 

 opposite to p. 132, cf. p. 136. — Parry (1824) p. 496. 



2) Boas (1888) p. 556. Cf. id. (1901) pp. 39 and 356-357. Cf. id. (1907) p. 476, 

 fig. 269 (Aivilik Eskimo). 



3j Franklin (1828) p. 226 writes about the Franklin Bay Eskimo: "and to excite 

 our liberality the mothers drew their children out of their wide boots, where 

 they are accustomed to cari-y them naked and holding them up, begged beads 

 for them." 



