OF A NORTH-WEST PASSAGE. 



497 



with which each individual is furnished, constitute the whole of their 

 dress. Children's clothes are often made of the skins of very young fawns 

 and of the marmot, as being softer than those of the deer. 



The Esquimaux, when thus equipped, may at all times bid defiance to the 

 rigour of this inhospitable climate ; and nothing can exceed the comfortable 

 appearance which they exhibit even in the. most inclement weather. When 

 seen at a little distance, the white rim of their hoods, whitened still more by 

 the breath collecting and freezing upon it, and contrasted with the dark faces 

 which they encircle, render them very grotesque objects ; but while the skin 

 of their dresses continues in good condition, they always look clean and 

 wholesome. 



To judge by the eagerness with which the women received our beads, 

 especially small white ones, as well as any other article of that kind, we 

 might suppose them very fond of personal ornament. Yet of all that they 

 obtained from us in this way at Winter-Island, scarcely any thing ever made 

 its appearance again during our stay there, except a ring or two on the 

 finger, and some bracelets of beads round the wrist ; the latter of these was 

 probably considered as a charm of some kind or other. We found among 

 them, at the time of our first intercourse, a number of small black and white 

 glass beads, disposed alternately on a string of sinew and worn in this 

 manner. They would also sometimes hang a small bunch of these, or a 

 button or two, in front of their jackets and hair ; and many of them, in the 

 course of the second winter, covered the whole front of their jackets with 

 the beads they received from us. 



The most common ornament of this kind, exclusively their own, consists 

 in strings of teeth, sometimes many hundred in number, which are either 

 attached to the lower part of the jacket like the fringe before described, or 

 fastened as a belt round the waist. Most of these teeth are of the fox and 

 wolf, but some also belonged to the musk-ox, (oommgmuk), of which animal, 

 though it is never seen at Winter-Island, we procured from the Esquimaux 

 several of the grinders and a quantity of the hair and skin. The bones of 

 the kablee-drioo, supposed to be the wolverene, constitute another of their or- 

 naments ; and it is more than probable that all these possess some imaginary 

 qualities, as specific charms for various purposes*. The most extraordinary 

 amulet, if it be one, of this kind, was a row of foxes' noses attached to the 



* Egede's Description of Greenland, London Edition, 1745, p. 194s 



3 S 



