Photo by Case and Draper
White Horse, Yukon Territory
Cook found the natives of the gulf of medium size, with square chests and large heads. The complexion of the children and some of the younger women was white; many of the latter having agreeable features and pleasing appearance. They were vivacious, good-natured, and of engaging frankness.
These people, of all ages and both sexes, wore a close robe reaching to the ankles—sometimes only to the knees—made of the skins of sea-otter, seal, gray fox, raccoon, and pine-marten. These garments were worn with the fur outside. Now and then one was seen made of the down of sea-birds, which had been glued to some other substance. The seams were ornamented with thongs, or tassels, of the same skins.
In rain they wore kamelinkas over the fur robes. Cook's description of a kamelinka as resembling a "gold-beater's leaf" is a very good one.
His understanding of the custom of wearing the labret, however, differs from that of other early navigators. The incision in the lip, he states, was made even in the children at the breast; while La Pérouse and others were of the impression that it was not made until a girl had arrived at a marriageable age.
It appears that the incision in time assumes the shape of real lips, through which the tongue may be thrust.
One of Cook's seamen, seeing for the first time a woman having the incision from which the labret had been removed, fell into a panic of horror and ran to his companions, crying that he "had seen a man with two mouths,"—evidently mistaking the woman for a man. Cook reported that both sexes wore the labret; but this was doubtless an error. When they are clad in the fur garments, which are called parkas, it is difficult to distinguish one sex from the other among the younger people.