and shells brought by Alaska Indians from the Pacific, It is only the women who here tattoo their faces, the three long stripes extending from lower lip to the chin.  The men crop their hair in the style of the tonsure of the monk.  Neither man nor woman provides any head covering except the hood of the artikki or smock, which hood, fringed with waving hair of the carcajou or wolverine, hangs loosely at the back until called into requisition by a winter’s storm or a summer’s siege of mosquitoes.

Eskimo clothing is much lighter in weight than it seems, and this is one reason why the Eskimo attaches of every Arctic expedition have moved around with less exhaustion than their European or American leaders.  A well-made Eskimo outfit of inner and outer suits, with mittens, socks, and boots, weighs about thirteen pounds, while one imported fur coat of European deerskin will alone weigh more than that.

A custom noted at the afternoon whale-meets and pink-teas might fittingly find way into the latitudes where narrow toes and French heels obtain.  Two ingenious young Kogmollyc belles had placed applique pockets mid-leg on their lower garments.  When the walrus was passed round and conversation became general, the boots were slipped off quietly and one foot at a time was thrust for a resting spell into the pocket provided on the opposite trouser-leg.  This act of easement was done deftly, and the neat action of instep boot-jack never lost its fascination for us.

[Illustration:  A Wise Man of the Dog-Ribs]

All the way from boundary-line to ice-barrier we had seen Indians tricked out in grotesque garments borrowed from the white man and used in combination with their own tribal covering of skins and furs.  These sun-bonnets and shepherd’s-plaid trousers, silk hats and red-flannel petticoats, the trader had persuaded the child of the woods to buy.  The debonair Eskimo is a re-incarnation of the bastard brother of Aragon’s Prince, and, leaning his furry back against the North Pole, says with him, “I smile at no man’s jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for no man’s pleasure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man’s business, laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour.”

[Illustration:  A Study in Expression]

You cannot induce an Eskimo to think he wants anything just because you have found that thing to your liking.  There are two reasons for this.  First, long experience in the most rigorous climate which the human race inhabits has taught this man what garments are the most suitable for him in which to live and move and have his being.  Second, although the Indian may ape the white man as a superior being from whom eleemosynary grub and gew-gaws may be wheedled, the Eskimo of the Mackenzie delta considers himself to be the superior of every created being.  The Eskimo knows what he wants; he is always sure of it, and there is no vacillating.  When he comes into the H.B.  Company’s post to trade, skins are his currency, the pelts of the silver-fox his gold coinage.  A good silver, or black-fox is worth here about one hundred dollars in barter.