616 



W. Thalbitzer 



It must be supposed that belts have been used in earlier times in 

 Greenland because we find a word for them, namely faysf/c (Fabricius), which 

 according to the old dictionaries means 'belts, especiallj^ skin-belts round 

 the waist in which amulets are kept.' The word agrees with the form and 

 signification of the western dialects; in the Alaskan (Point Barrow) dialect 

 the word tapsi means 'a belt which is used to hold up the pantaloons or 

 breeches' and 'a girdle which is always worn outside of the frock;' in the 

 Labrador dialect tapse means 'a string to bind round the boot' etc., tapserut 

 'belt round the waist.' ^) — The material seems to vary; from southwest 

 Alaska up to the arctic coast we hear of a favourite waist belt worn by the 

 women made from the incisors of reindeer. Similar teeth-belts have been 

 found in use from the Bering Straits to the regions of the Central Eskimo, 

 e. g. from Iglulik where Lyon describes them as follows. 



"When a girdle is worn round the waist, it answers the 

 double purposes of comfort and ornament; being frequently 

 composed of some valuable trinkets, such as foxes' bones, 

 those of the kableeaghioo [wolverine?], or sometimes of the 

 ears of deer, which hang in pairs to the number of twenty 

 or thirty, and are trophies of the skill of the hunter to whom 

 the wearer is allied." 2) 



Also from Greenland we have some evidence that similar 

 belts have been in use; at the Skærgaard Peninsula for ex- 

 ample, Amdrup found a row of 53 teeth perforated at the 

 root so that they could be drawn on a string^) 



Besides belts of teeth (sewed along a strap of rawhide) 

 we hear of belts from Alaska consisting of a strap of tanned 

 seal-skin sewn with beads arranged in fantastic circles and 

 lines (Nelson). From northern Alaska we have descriptions 

 of belts for men woven from feathers and for women made 

 of wolverine's toes, and also of more simple belts of deer 

 skin or wolf-skin. On the woven feather belts a checkered 

 pattern is obtained by the alternating use of white and black 

 feathers (i. e. shafts of feathers)^). 



The belt is kept in place by means of the belt-fasteners 

 carved of ivory in greatly varying shapes, such as buttons, 

 toggles, hooks, buckles etc.*). A bone-toggle found by Am- 

 drup on the Skærgaard Peninsula is probably a belt fastener of a similar 

 kind=^) 



Ornamental carvings and reliefs of ivory (pp. 115 — 120). — 

 Pendants carved of ivory or bear-bone are found at Ammassalik 

 especially in connection with the triangular needle-skins of the women 

 (figs. 249 — 251). Besides the useful pendants mentioned already, i. e. 

 thimble guards etc. (p. 520), there also exist some purely ornamental 

 pendants, seen e.g. in fig. 249 b and still better in fig. 42, and in 

 fig. 345. As shown by G. Holm (see pp. 115 — 116) they are doll-like 

 imitations of human beings that have been introduced as conventional 



Fig. 346. 



Bear's tooth 

 луогп for orna- 

 ment or charm. 



Nualik. (Am- 

 drup coll.). Ч2. 



1) Murdoch (1892) p. 135; Erdmann, Eskimoisches Wörterbuch aus Labrador p. 314. 



''} Lyon (1824) pp. 315-316. 



3) Amdrup coll. no. 57; Thalbitzer (1909) pp. 417-419, fig. 34 (and 70d). 



*) Nelson (1899) pp. 59—63; Murdoch (1899; p. 138, fig. 86; Hoas (1888) fig. 510. 



") Amdrup coll. no. 54; Thalbitzer (1909) p. 412, fig. 30. Cf. Boas (1901) p. 19, fig. 14. 



