Fig. 389 (No. 89724 [1123] from Nuwŭk) is the face of a male Eskimo, 3.2 inches long, carved out of a flat piece of some coniferous wood weathered to a dark, reddish brown. The labrets are represented by two small, red glass beads with white centers, fastened on in the proper position with wooden pegs. There is a deep groove around the edge of the face into which is fastened a strip of yellowish wolfskin with long fur to represent the trimming around the hood of the jacket. This specimen was made for sale, and the carving is well executed. It is a characteristic Eskimo face, and would pass for a portrait of Apaidyáo, a well known young Eskimo, who was employed by Lieut. Ray as a guide and hunter.
Fig. 389.—Carving, face of Eskimo man.
Fig. 390.—Grotesque soapstone image, “walrus man.”
We collected only two soap-stone carvings representing men, both of which were newly made. One of these, Fig. 390 (No. 89569 [1095] from Nuwŭk), is a grotesque image 2.9 inches long, roughly carved from a flat piece of an old lamp or pot. This is almost exactly the form in which the Eskimo, especially the children, usually draw a man. The writer’s portrait has been drawn in very much the same shape. The features are very rudely indicated, and a long projecting tusk of bone is inserted at each corner of the mouth and glued in with refuse oil. This figure is probably meant to represent the “man with tusks,” before referred to, who figures in several of the legendary fragments which we obtained.
No. 89568 [1108], from Utkiavwĭñ, probably represents the same being. It is a mask of soapstone, a piece of an old lamp, 2.8 inches long, with very characteristic features in low relief, and a pair of sharp, projecting, decurved tusks, about 1 inch long, which appear to be made of the vibrissæ of the walrus. The back of the mask is roughly hollowed out. No. 89575 [1014], from Nuwŭk, is a clumsy and carelessly made image of a man, 3.4 inches long, whittled out of a flat, rough piece of soft, white gypsum. The arms are short and clumsy and the legs straddling, and there is a large elliptical hole through the middle of the body. The features are indicated only by digging little cavities for the eyes, nostrils, and mouth. This and two other images of the same material, a bear equally rude, and a very well carved and characteristic beluga, were made by the ingenious young native, Yöksa, previously mentioned.
The best bone figure of a man is shown in Fig. 391 (No. 89353 [1025], from Nuwŭk), also newly made. This is an image, 5 inches long, of the giant “Kikámigo,” previously mentioned, and is a very excellent piece of workmanship. The material is rather vascular compact bone. On the head is a conical dancing cap, 1.4 inches high, made of deerskin, with the flesh side out, and colored with red ocher, with a tuft of wolf hairs, 3 inches long, protruding from the apex. Around the middle of the cap is a narrow strip of the same material fringed on the lower edge with fifteen flat, narrow pendants of ivory, made to represent mountain-sheep teeth. To the back of this strip is fastened a half-downy feather nearly 4 inches long. A slender wooden stick is stuck into the strip behind, so that the tip reaches just above the apex of the cap. To a notch in the end of this is tied a bit of dressed deerskin, 1¼ inches long, cut into three strips.