70 
rainy weather, or when travelling by sea, both sexes threw over this 
cloak a short cape, generally of cedar bark, that slipped over the 
head like a poncho; and the men, sometimes also the women, wore 
a curious conical hat of woven cedar bark or spruce root, often 
adorned with conventionalized designs of fisli and animals. There 
were mittens for winter use, and loose robes of sea-otter and other 
skins to wrap about the shoulders over the other garments, as 
occasion rec|uired. The sea-otter cloaks and robes, restricted by some 
triVjes (e.g. the Nootka) to men, aroused a keen competition among 
Russian, Spanish, and English traders during tlie last quarter of the 
eighteenth century, and the heavy demand for the raw skins of the 
aniinal speedily brought about its virtual extinction. 
Outside the area of the Pacific coast clothing consisted entirely 
of dressed skins, completely tailored among the Eskimo and some 
adjacent tribes, partly tailored among the remainder. The dressing 
and cooking of meat and the dressing and sewing of skins were indeed 
the principal occupations of the women all over the country, who 
matched their skill with the needle against their husbands’ skill in 
hunting.^ There were no professional tailors; the man supplied all 
the skins his family required, and his wife manufactured them into 
clothing. The sewing outfit was very primitive; a knife of stone 
(more rarely of native copper) to cut out the skins, a bodkin to 
punch the holes, a bone needle with thread of twisted sinew from 
the back or leg of some animal, and, among the Eskimo, a thimble 
of bone or skin to protect the finger. There were, of course, no steel 
needles or manufacturer’s thread, no scissors, and no sewing machine. 
The women did not even use patterns to guide them in their tailor- 
ing, but cut and trimmed and sewed according to designs in their 
own minds, following methods and styles which they had learned in 
childhood. - 
These methods and styles differed only in minor details. Speak- 
ing broadly, the men’s costume consisted of a shirt that fell to the 
thighs, a breech-cloth,^ long leggings, and moccasins, with the addi- 
tion of a robe, mittens, and sometimes a cap in cold weather. Women 
dressed in much the same way, except that they converted the shirt 
1 Iroquois women also performed most of the work in the maize fields. 
2 The designs woven by the Tlinkit women on the goats’ wool blankets, however, \vere copied from 
drawings made on boards by the men. 
3 Some of tlie interior tribes of British Columbia ilid not adopt the breech -cloth until post-Euro- 
pean times. 
