Identifier: handbooktoethnog00brit (find matches)
Title: Handbook to the ethnographical collections
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: British Museum. Dept. of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography Joyce, Thomas Athol, 1878-1942 Dalton, O. M. (Ormonde Maddock), 1866-1945
Subjects:
Publisher: (London) : Printed by order of the Trustees
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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e are often worn, and fur mittens cover the hands.Womens hoods are made very large in order that they may serveas cradles for carrying children ; their boots are also high andloose, and small objects are carried in them. Women aretatued by a process of stitching with a sinew thread blackened bysoot from a cooking-pot. Tatu on the cheeks and chin is XOKTII AMEKICA 249 often an indication that a woman is niarxied. The WesternEskimo are in the habit of inserting hutton-hke hp-ornaments ofstone below the corners of the mouth. Houses for use in winter(ighi) are dome-shaped, and made of blocks of snow or ice. Theentrance is through a long low passage, and light is admitted bya thick pane of ice. On the sides of the hut are ice or snow seats,which when thickly spread with skins serve as beds at night.Though the only fire is an oil lamp, these huts are often so warmthat the inmates divest themselves of their heavy clothing. Insummer a kind of tent covered with skins is used instead of thehut.
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Fig. 22(>.—Adze of bone and iron, pick of wood and ivory, and hidescraper of bone and iron. Eskimo. In the hut the lamp is the most important article of furniture.It is made of stone, and fed with seal-oil. Over it the stone cooking-pot is suspended, and wet clothes are placed to dry. Fire wasgenerally produced by means of pyrites and steel (tig. 7, a), but some-times the method of friction was employed, one stick being made torevolve upon another by means of a drill (fig. 7, c). The food of the Eskimo is entirely animal, and as a result ofthe great cold large (luantities of meat, fat, and blubber are con-sumed, while much seal- and walrus-blood is drunk. On accountof this need of animal food, the greater part of their timeis occupied by hunting and fishing. Seals are sometimes stalkedwhile they lie asleep out of the water; but one of the usualmethods is to wait near one of their breathing-holes in the ice.The approach of the seal is sometimes indicated by the use ofa small ivory

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