600 



W. Thalbitzer 



young people, were attacked towards the spring by snow blindness 

 from imprudently going without snow-glasses or goggles. The attack 

 begins with severe pain in the eyes or head and a weakening of the 

 eye-sight, forcing the person to lie down with closed eyes; on resting 

 in the hut for three or four days in the greatest darkness possible, 

 the pains generally disappear. 



Men's hair bands (sooniaqitaat) and hair dressing (p. 32). — 

 These bands mainly consist of a row of beads (niwiijalertaat) fast- 

 ened between two narrow skin-borders. Previously the most com- 

 mon beads were various 

 small bones in the paws 

 of the seal or the foot of 

 the fox, and, the smallest 

 ones used were the dorsal 

 vertebrae of caplins (cf. 

 p. 34); the latter are seen 

 in fig. 324, where they are 

 strung on the single strings 

 hanging down from the 

 hair- band over the front 

 hair. Sometimes they string 

 the beads on single hairs 

 of their own. The fish- 

 beads have been replaced 

 in recent times by red and 

 white glass-beads from Eu- 

 rope. Fig. 326 a — b show^s 

 how the men used the hair- 

 bands round the long hair 

 so as to keep it tidy on the 

 head. 



During the winter we 

 stayed at Ammassalik al- 

 most all the men had long uncut hair and many of them used 

 hair-bands to gather it round the crown of the head and the back 

 of the neck, while the loose ends fell in profusion down over the 

 shoulders. Some of them however had another mode of dressing 

 their hair, this having been clipped round by their mother when 

 they were quite young, probably for religious reasons (cf. piaarqu- 

 siät, p. 588); these kept their hair cut in this way all their life, so 

 that without being quite long or quite short it formed a kind of 

 cap round the head. Now that many of them have become baptized 

 by the missionaries the men have cut their hair quite short in order 



Fig. 326 a. Ammassalik man with hair-halters, 

 (Johan Petersen phot.). 



