Fig. 66.—Pattern of man’s cloak.
[Rain-frocks.]—
The rain-frock (silû´ña) is made of strips of seal or walrus intestines about 3 inches broad, sewed together edge to edge. This material is light yellowish brown, translucent, very light, and quite waterproof. In shape the frock resembles a man’s frock, but the hood comes well forward and fits closely round the face. It is generally plain, but the seams are nowadays sewed with black or colored cotton for ornament. The garment is of the same shape for both sexes, but the women frequently cover the flesh side of a deerskin frock with strips of entrail sewed together vertically, thus making a garment at once waterproof and warm, which is worn alone in summer with the hair side in. These gut shirts are worn over the clothes in summer when it rains or when the wearer is working in the boats. There are no specimens in the collection.
The kaiak jacket of black sealskin, so universal in Greenland, is unknown at Point Barrow. The waterproof gut frocks are peculiar to the western Eskimo, though shirts of seal gut, worn between the inner and outer frock, are mentioned by Egede (p. 130) and Crantz[221] as used in Greenland in their time. Ellis also[222] says: “Some few of them [i.e., the Eskimo of Hudsons Strait] wear shifts of seals’ bladders, sewed together in pretty near the same form with those in Europe.” They have been described generally under the name kamleïka (said to be a Siberian word) by all the authors who have treated of the natives of this region, Eskimo, Siberians, or Aleuts. We saw them worn by nearly all the natives at Plover Bay. One handsome one was observed trimmed on the seams with rows of little red nodules (pieces of the beak of one of the puffins) and tiny tufts of black feathers.
The cotton frock, already alluded to as worn to keep the driving snow out of the furs, is a long, loose shirt reaching to about midleg, with a round hole at the neck large enough to admit the head. This is generally of bright-colored calico, but shirts of white cotton are sometimes worn when hunting on the ice or snow. Similar frocks are worn by the natives at Pitlekaj.[223]
[ARM CLOTHING.]
[Mittens.]—
The hands are usually protected by mittens (aitkă´ti) of different kinds of fur. The commonest kind are of deerskin, worn with the flesh side out. Of these the collection contains one pair, No. 89828 [973] (Fig. 67). They are made of thick winter reindeer skin, with the white flesh side outward, in the shape of ordinary mittens but short and not narrowed at the wrists, with the thumb short and clumsy. The seams are all sewed “over and over” on the hair side. These mittens are about 7½ inches long and 4½ broad. The free part of the thumb is only 2¼ inches long on the outer side. Such mittens are the ordinary hand covering of men, women, and children. In extreme cold weather or during winter hunting, very heavy mittens of the same shape, but gathered to a wristband, are worn. These are made of white bearskin for men and women, for children of dogskin, with the hair out. When the hand covered with such a mitten is held upon the windward side of the face in walking, the long hair affords a very efficient protection against the wind. The long stiff hair of the bearskin also makes the mitten a very convenient brush for removing snow and hoar frost from the clothes. It is even sometimes used for brushing up the floor.