Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/213

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seems to conform to the present day pattern, as also does that figured by Boas[1] from the Aiviliks. The design shown by Boas[2] from Image missingFig. 157.Face tatooing. Ponds Inlet I have not seen, and the same applies to that figured by Hawkes[3] from Repulse Bay.

The men do not tatoo very much, most of them not at all. On one or both hands, and sometimes on the shoulders too, some men have a human figure; two men at Ponds Inlet had a rather big tatooing on the shoulders, consisting of a row of human figures on each shoulder. Perhaps Parry[4] means something similar when he says that several of the men had "a little of this kind of mark on the back part of their hands".

Women are tatooed, when they become grown up, by the other women. A set of special implements is used for this purpose: fig. 159 (Aivilingmiut) shows a copper needle, fastened to a wooden shaft with sinew-thread, in all 9.8 cm long; this is for making holes. Then there is a small wooden stick, very pointed at the end, 7.3 cm long, and a small soot box of bearded-seal skin, 5.9 cm long; the soot is inserted into the holes by means of the wooden stick. This set is quite new and unused.

Image missing
Fig. 158.Tatooing patterns.

This method differs from that described by Parry[5] ". . . by passing a needle and thread, the latter covered with lampblack and oil under the epidermis according to pattern previously marked out upon the skin. Several stitches being thus taken at once, the thumb is pressed upon the part, while the thread is drawn through, by which means the colouring matter is retained and a permanent dye of a blue tinge imparted to the skin." Carl Petersen[6] mentions the same method from Ponds Inlet.

  1. ↑ 1901 p. 108.
  2. ↑ l. c. fig. 157 c.
  3. ↑ fig. 31 d.
  4. ↑ 1824 p. 499.
  5. ↑ l. c. p. 498.
  6. ↑ p. 103.
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