Fig. 57.—Man’s frock of mountain sheepskin, front and back.
The chief variation in deerskin frocks is in the trimming. All have the hood fitted to the head and throat, with cheek and throat pieces, and these are invariably white or light colored, even when the frock is made of white Siberian deer skin. When possible the head of the deer is always used for the back of the hood, as Capt. Parry observed to be the custom at Iglulik.[209] A plain frock is sometimes used for rough work, hunting, etc. This has no fringe or trimming round the hood, skirt, or wrists, the first being smoothly hemmed or bound with deerskin and the last two left raw-edged. Fig. 56 shows such a jacket, which is often made of very heavy winter deerskin. Most frocks, however, have the border to the hood either of wolf or wolverine skin, in the latter case especially having the end of the strips hanging down like tassels under the chin. The long hairs give a certain amount of protection to the face when walking in the wind.[210] Instead of a fringe the hood sometimes has three tufts of fur, one on each side and one above.
Trimmings of edging like that above described, or of plain wolverine fur round the skirts and wrists, are common, and the shoulder straps rather less so. Frocks are sometimes also fringed on the skirts and seams with little strips of deerskin, after what the Point Barrow people called the “Kûñmûdlĭñ” fashion.[211] Nearly all the natives wear outer frocks of deerskin, but on great occasions elaborately made garments of other materials are sometimes seen. Nos. 56758 [87] (Fig. 57, a and b) and 56757 [11] (Fig. 58, a and b) are two such frocks. No. 56758 [87] is of mountain sheep skin, nearly white. As shown in the diagrams (Fig. 59, a, b, c), the general pattern is not unlike the type described, but there are more pieces in the hood and several small gussets are inserted to improve the set of the garment. The trimmings are shoulder straps, and a border round the skirt of edging like that described above, and the seams of the throat pieces are piped with the dark almost hairless deerskin, which sets them off from the rest of the coat. The wrists have narrow borders of wolf fur, and there was a wolfskin fringe to the hood, which was removed before the garment was offered for sale.
Fig. 58.—Man’s frock of ermine skins, front and back.
No. 56757 [11] is a very handsome garment (Fig. 58). The body and sleeves are of white and brown (winter and summer) ermine skins arranged in an elegant pattern, and the hood of reindeer and mountain sheep skin. This is the only frock seen in which the hood is not fitted to the sides of the throat by curved and pointed throat pieces, after the fashion universal among the western Eskimo, from Cape Bathurst at least to Norton Sound. The pattern of the hood is shown by the diagram (Fig. 60 a). The middle piece is the skin of a reindeer head, the two cheek pieces and median chin piece of mountain sheep skin. When the hood is put together the lower edge of it is sewed to the neck of the body, which has the back and front of nearly the same size and shape (diagram, Fig. 60 b), though the back is a little longer in the skirt. There is no regular seam on the shoulders, where irregular bits of white ermine skin are pieced together so as to fit. From the armpit on each side runs a narrow strip of sheepskin between back and front. The sleeve is a long piece made of three white ermine skins put together lengthwise, doubled above, with a straight strip of sheepskin let in below, and enlarged near the body by two triangular gussets (front and back) let in between the ermine and sheepskin. The wristbands are broad pieces of sheepskin. The skirts are of white ermine skins pieced together irregularly, but the skins composing the front, back, and sleeves are split down the back of the animal and neatly cut into long rectangular pieces, with the feet and tails still attached. They are arranged in a pattern of vertical stripes, two skins fastened together end to end making a stripe, which is the same on the front and the back. There is a brown stripe down the middle, then two white stripes on each side, and a brown stripe on each edge. The hood is bound round the edge with white sheepskin and bordered with wolfskin. There are shoulder straps and a border round the skirt of edging of the usual materials, but slightly different arrangement, and tagged with small red glass beads.