Among the Innuit the mammals are divided into two classes: the noble and the inferior beasts. The skins of the former are used, though not exclusively, by the men, while the latter may be worn only by the women. No man would debase himself by wearing a particle of the fur of the hare or of the white fox; the skins of these timid creatures are reserved for the women alone. Either sex may wear the skins of all other mammals, except at certain times, under restrictions imposed by superstition.
The women wear mittens of hare or fox skin, with palms of sealskin or Indian-tanned bird’s skin. Reindeer skin with the hair on is also used for mittens. The heavy skin from the body is selected for the sake of warmth. When these mittens are to be used when driving dogs the palm is made of sealskin, to enable the wearer to get a firm grasp on the whip handle. The skin of the deer’s forelegs, which has hair of a different character from that on the body, also makes excellent mittens, specially suited for handling snow in building the snow huts. Mittens are sometimes fringed round the wrist with a strip of white bearskin to keep out the wind.
All mittens have such short thumbs that they are very inconvenient for a white man, who habitually holds his thumb spread away from the palm, whereas the Innuit usually keep the thumb apposed to the palm. The wrists of the mitten also are so short that considerable of the wrist is often exposed. The sleeves of the jacket are generally fringed with wolf or dog skin to protect this exposed portion of the wrist.
Similar mittens of black sealskin are also worn by the men during damp weather, or when handling objects which would easily soil a pair of furred mittens. I have never seen a woman wear this kind of covering for the hand. It appears to be exclusively worn by the men.
Fig. 44. Long waterproof sealskin mitten.
The men who engage in the late fall seal hunting protect their hands with waterproof gauntlets, which reach well up over the forearm. These keep the hands from being wet by the spray and by the drip from the paddle. Fig. 44, No. 90074, represents one of these long mittens, made of black tanned sealskin, and edged with a strip of hairy sealskin over an inch wide. The back or upper portion of the mitten is made of a single piece of black skin, the edge of which is crimped and turned under to protect the fingers. The palm is a separate piece, joined to the backpiece, and on it is a projecting part to form the inner half of the thumb. The outer half of the thumb and the under side of the forearm are made of a single piece, stitched to the palm portion and that which covers the back of the hand and arm, so that, including the edging of hairy skin, there are only four pieces of skin entering into the make of a pair of these mittens. They are worn only by the men, and only when they are engaged in work where the hands would be immersed in water during cold weather. As the skin from which they are made is the same as that used for water-tight boots, it is obvious that no moisture can touch the skin of the hand.
For protection from rain and wet they wear over their other clothes a waterproof hooded frock (Fig. 45) made of seal entrails, preferably the intestines of the bearded seal (Erignathus barbatus). The intestines of animals killed in October are considered the best for this purpose. They then are not so fat and require less dressing to clean them. The contents are removed and they are filled with water and thoroughly washed out. The fat and other fleshy matter adhering are removed by means of a knife used as a scraper. This being done, the intestine is inflated with air and strung along the tops of the rocks to dry. When dry it is carefully flattened and rolled into tight bundles, like a spool of ribbon, and laid away until wanted.