Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/239

Rh honey-yellow leather, about an eighth of an inch thick, stands the water very well, and is quite durable.

Under the outer pantaloons the women wear a second pair of thicker deer-skin, skin-side out, with stocking-feet. When the spring comes, and the snow gets sloppy on the surface, they discard the outer pantaloons and put on water-proof boots like the men's, but held up by a draw-string just below the knee. Later in the season, when there is a good deal of wet weather, and they are knocking around in boats, they wear pantaloons made wholly of water-proof black sealskin. All these pantaloons, like the men's breeches, are rather short in the waist, and are held up by a girdle just above the hips. Like a sailor's trousers, they need a good deal of hitching up.

The frock is always confined round the waist by a girdle, often merely a strip of skin. The men, however, often have handsome belts about an inch and a half wide, woven of the shafts of feathers. By using black and white feathers a very neat pattern is produced. The fashionable ladies' belt is made by sewing together bits of fur from the feet of the wolverine, each with a single claw attached.

Fastened to the belt behind, every man and boy wears the bushy tail of some animal. A wolverine's tail is the "correct thing"; but those who can not afford this wear the tail of the wolf or the Eskimo dog. This fashion gave rise to the story, told by the old Russian voyagers, of men with tails on the American coast.

It is also very fashionable to wear the skin of an ermine dangling from the frock between the shoulders, or an eagle's feather in the same place or on the back of the hood. These are amulets, and are supposed to bring good luck, like the dried birds' heads, bear's claws, and other such things which the men wear dangling from the belt.

The only head-covering is the hood of the frock, which comes forward just far enough to cover the ears. In very cold weather, or when they are sitting on the ice watching for seals, the men wear cloaks of deer-skin over their other clothes. When it rains, or when they are out in the boats in rough weather, both men and women draw over their other clothes a frock made of strips of the entrails of the seal dried and stitched together. This frock has a hood which fits close round the face, and is quite water-proof.

Since these people have had so much to do with the white men, they have taken to wearing a good deal of bright-colored calico. Of this they make long frocks without hoods, which they wear over their furs in blustering weather to keep the snow from getting on to them.