One of the Nunatañmiun wore a glass cruet-stopper for a labret, and many natives of Utkiavwĭñ took the glass stopples of Worcestershire sauce bottles, which were thrown away at the station, and inserted them in the labret holes for everyday wear, sometimes grinding the round top into an oblong stud. There is one specimen of the plug labret in the collection. Labrets of all kinds are very highly prized, and it was almost impossible to obtain them.[261] Though we repeatedly asked for them and promised to pay a good price, genuine labrets that had been worn or that were intended for actual use were very rarely offered for sale, though at one time a large number of roughly made models or imitations were brought in. The single specimen of the plug labret (tu´tɐ) is No. 89700 [1163] (figured in Point Barrow Report, Ethnology, Pl. V, Fig. 3). It is a cylindrical plug of hard, bright green stone (jade or hypochlorite), 1.1 inches long and 0.6 in diameter at the outer end, which is rounded off, tapering slightly inward and expanded at the base into an elliptical disk 1.2 inches long and 0.9 broad, slightly concave on the surface which rests against the teeth and gum. The specimen is old and of a material very unusual at Point Barrow. Fig. 92, No. 89719 [1166], from Nuwŭk, may also be called a plug labret, but is of a very unusual pattern, and said to be very old. It has an oblong stud of walrus ivory surmounted by a large, transparent, slightly greenish glass bead, on top of which is a small, translucent, sky-blue bead. The beads are held on by a short wooden peg, running through the perforations of the beads and a hole drilled through the ivory. There is a somewhat similar labret in the Museum collection (No. 48202) from Cape Prince of Wales, also very old. It is surmounted by a single oblong blue bead.
I saw but one other labret made of whole beads, and this had three good sized oval blue beads, in a cluster, projecting from the hole. It was worn by a man from Nuwŭk. This may be compared with a specimen from the Mackenzie district, No. 7714, to which two similar beads are attached in the same way. The disk labret is the pattern worn on full-dress occasions, seldom when working or hunting. One disk and one plug labret are frequently worn. Disk labrets are made of stone, sometimes of syenite or porphyry, but the most fashionable kind is made of white marble, and has half of a large, blue glass bead cemented on the center of the disk. These are as highly prized as they were in Dr. Simpson’s time, and we consequently did not succeed in procuring a specimen.
I obtained one pair of syenite disk labrets, No. 56716 [197] (figured in Point Barrow Rept., Ethnology, Pl. V, Fig. 2). Each is a flat circular disk (1.7 and 1.6 inches in diameter, respectively) of rather coarse-grained black and white syenite, ground very smooth, but not polished. On the back of each is an elliptical stud, like that of a sleeve-button, 1.2 and 1.1 inches long and 0.8 and 0.6 broad, respectively.
Fig. 93.—Blue and white labret from Anderson River.
Fig. 93, No. 2083, is one of the blue and white disks said to come from the Anderson River. This is introduced to represent those worn at Point Barrow, which are of precisely the same pattern. The disk is of white marble, 1½ inches in diameter, and in the center of it is cemented, apparently with oil dregs, half of a transparent blue glass bead, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, around the middle of which is cut a shallow groove. Similar marble disks without the bead are sometimes worn. These blue and white labrets appear to be worn from Cape Bathurst to the Kaniag peninsula, including the Diomede Islands (see figure on p. 140 of Dall’s Alaska). There are specimens in the Museum from the Anderson River and from the north shore of Norton Sound and we saw them worn by the Nunatañmiun, as well as the natives of Point Barrow and Wainwright Inlet. The beads, which are larger than those sold by the American traders, were undoubtedly obtained from Siberia, as Kotzebue, in 1816, found the people of the sound which bears his name wearing labrets “ornamented with blue glass beads.”[262] The high value set on these blue-bead labrets has been mentioned by Franklin[263] and T. Simpson,[264] as well as by Dr. Simpson.[265] The last named seems to be the first to recognize that the disks were made of marble. All previous writers speak of them as made of walrus ivory.
There are still at Point Barrow a few labrets of a very ancient pattern, such as are said to have been worn in the middle of the lip. These are very rarely put on, but are often carried by the owners on the belt as amulets. All that we saw were of light green translucent jade, highly polished. I obtained one specimen, No. 89705 [866] (figured in Point Barrow Rept., Ethnology, Pl. V, Fig. 1), a thin oblong disk of light green, translucent, polished jade, 2.6 inches long, 1.1 wide in the middle, and 0.8 wide at the ends, with the outer face slightly convex. On the back is an oblong stud with rounded ends, slightly curved to fit the gums.
Labrets of this material and pattern do not seem to be common anywhere. Beechey saw one in Kotzebue Sound 3 inches long and 1½ wide,[266] and there is a large and handsome one in the Museum brought by Mr. Nelson from the lower Yukon. A similar one has recently been received from Kotzebue Sound.