Fig. 326.—Needles and thimbles: (a) large bone needle and peculiar thimble; (b) leather thimbles with bone needles.
Fig. 326a is a peculiarly large and flat needle (No. 89392 [1195] from Utkiavwĭñ) 3.2 inches long, with a round, sharp point and a large eye, with little grooves running to the butt on each side for the thread to lie in. This needle was perhaps specially meant for sewing boat skins. With this needle belongs a peculiar large bone or ivory thimble. The remaining needles are all very much alike, though some are more roughly made than the others. Three of them have the butt square instead of rounded, and half of them, including some which are undoubtedly old, are four-sided at the point like a glover’s needle. The longest is 3 inches long and the shortest 1.4 inches, but the commonest length is about 2 or 2½ inches. Similar bone needles are mentioned by various authors.[420]
Nearly all the women now use ordinary metal thimbles, obtained in trade, but they wear them in the old-fashioned way, on the tip of the forefinger. Some of the older women, however, still prefer the ancient leather thimble. There are two patterns of these: one intended for the fore-finger only, and the other of such a shape that it may also be worn on the other fingers as a guard against chafing in pulling stout thread through thick leather. It is often so used at the present day.
We collected three of the first-mentioned pattern, which is represented by Fig. 326b (No. 89396 [1202,1246]). It is made by cutting out a narrow ring of raw sealskin 0.7 inch in diameter, with a circular flap 0.5 inch in diameter on the outside of the ring and a corresponding one on the inside of the same size, cut out of the middle of the ring. The flaps are doubled over so as to make a pad on the inside of the forefinger when the tip of the latter is inserted into the ring. The butt of the needle presses against this pad.
The third thimble, which belongs with the needlecase (No. 89371 [1276]), is of precisely the same form and dimensions.
There appeared to be little if any variation among those which we saw. Capt. Lyon[421] figures two similar thimbles from Iglulik, which are described on page 537 of the same work as being made of leather. The flaps, however, seem to be only semicircular and not folded over, so that the shield consists of only one thickness of leather.
A similar thimble with the flap also not folded is used at Cumberland Gulf.[422]
The other pattern, of which we brought home nine specimens, is represented by No. 89389 [1191], which belongs with the set of bone needles of the same number. It is a tube, open at both ends, one of which is larger than the other, made by bending round a strip of split walrus hide and sewing the ends together. It is 0.4 inch long and 2.1 in circumference at the larger end. It is worn smooth with handling, and impregnated with grease and dirt and marked with small pits where it has been pressed against the butt of the needle in use.
Four other old thimbles (No. 89393 [1194], from Utkiavwĭñ, are made in the same way, but are a trifle larger. As they show no needle-marks, they were probably used only as finger guards. The remaining four are similar to the above, but newly made, for sale.