Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/127

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dried and the fat chewed off. Formerly, eider duck skins were sometimes used for underclothing and for stockings for kayak use.[1]

Urine tanning is no longer practised, and none of the Eskimos now alive seem to have heard of it. In fact, one man expressed disgust at the idea. Parry,[2] however, describes the preparation of water-tight skin in the following manner: ".... first cleaning the skin from as much of the fat and fleshy matter as the ooloo will take off, and then rubbing it hard for several hours with a blunt scraper, called sia-koot, so as nearly to dry it. It is then put into a vessel containing urine and left to steep a couple of days after which Image missingFig. 69.Drawing-implement. 1 : 2. a drying completes the process. Skins dressed in the hair are however not always thus steeped; the women, instead of this, chewing them for hours together till they are quite soft and clean." Lyon,[3] too, refers to bowls of urine, in which skins were being tanned. Strangely enough, caribou skin also seems to have been treated with urine, as Lyon[4] says: "When deer skins are prepared so as to resemble shamoy leather, the only preparation after the usual scraping and drying, is by chewing, rubbing between the hands and ultimately scrubbing with sand and urine: while damp a second scraping is given, and on drying, the skin assumes a beautiful appearance." This seems to be a process that has quite gone out of use now.

It is thus certain enough that urine tanning has previously been practised by the Iglulik Eskimos, an interesting circumstance, as it is not known to the more easterly Central Eskimo tribes, a fact already mentioned by Hatt.[5]

Sewing and Sewing Implements.

Clothing skins are cut up with the ulo to eye measure. Fig. 69 (Ponds Inlet) is a little implement of ivory (uktun) with an edge, 8.8 cm long, which was said to be used for drawing on caribou skin before being cut into pieces; this however, was the only implement of the kind I saw. Cutting of smaller pieces of skin is done on the sewing board (qiorfik) a simple, square board of wood; one of these, from Qajûvfik, is 24 × 17 cm, 1.7 cm thick, worn on both sides.

Nowadays, sewing is always done with steel needles (merqut), which are bought at the station. In former days they used bone needles with an eye;[6] these of course, were among the first to dis-

  1. ↑ 1824, p. 537.
  2. ↑ 1824, p. 538.
  3. ↑ 1824, p. 118.
  4. ↑ l. c., p. 319.
  5. ↑ 1914, p. 33.
  6. ↑ Parry l. c., p. 537 and fig. p. 548. 11.
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