Part 15

_Pantaloons (kûmûñ)._--The women and children, and occasionally the men, wear pantaloons (strictly speaking), i.e., tight-fitting trousers continuous with the foot covering. Of the two pairs of pantaloons in the collection, No. 74042 [1792] (Fig. 72) will serve as the type. The shoes with sealskin moccasin soles and deerskin uppers are sewed at the ankles to a pair of tight-fitting deerskin trousers, reaching above the hips and higher behind than in front. Pattern (diagram, Fig. 73_a_): Each leg is composed of four long pieces (front 1, outside 2, back 3, and inside 4), five gussets (one on the thigh 5, and four on the calf, 6, 6, 6, 6), which enlarges the garment to fit the swell of the calf and thigh and the half-waistband (7). The two legs are put together by joining the edges _d d d_ of the opposite legs and sewing the gusset (8) into the space in front with its base joined to the edges _e e_ of the two legs. The sole of each shoe is a single piece of white tanned sealskin with the grain side out, bent up about 1¼ inches all round the foot, rounded at the toe and heel and broadest across the ball of the foot. The toe and heel are “gathered” into shape by crimping the edge vertically. A space of about 3½ inches is left uncrimped on each side of the foot. (The process of crimping these soles will be described under the head of boots and shoes, where it properly belongs). Around the top of this sole is sewed a narrow band of white sealskin, sewed “over and over” on the edge of the uncrimped space, but “run” through the gathers at the ends, so as to draw them up. The upper is in two pieces (heel, 9, and toe, 10). The heel piece is folded round the heel, and the toe piece doubled along the line _f_, and the curved edges _g g_ joined to the straight edges _h h_, which makes the folded edge _f_, fit the outline of the instep. The bottom is then cut off accurately to fit the sole and sewed to the edge of the band. The trousers and shoes are sewed together at the ankles. The whole is made of the short-haired skin from the deer’s legs. Pieces 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are of dark brown skin (10 put on so that the tuft of coarse hair on the deer’s ankle comes on the outside of the wearer’s ankle), while the remaining pieces are white, making a pleasing pattern of broad stripes. The inner edge of 5 is piped with dark brown fawnskin, and a round piece of white skin is inserted at the bottom of 2. No. 56748 [136] is a pair of pantaloons of nearly the same pattern (see diagram, Fig. 73_b_) and put together in a similar way. These pantaloons have soles of sealskin with the hair left on and worn inside, and are made of deer leg skin, wholly dark brown, except the gussets on the calf, which are white. There is a piece of white skin let out, 2, as before, and the ankle tuft is in the same position.

From the general fit of these garments they appear to be all made on essentially the same pattern, probably without greater variations than those already described. When worn by the women the material is usually, if not always, the skin of reindeer legs, and most commonly of the pattern of No. 56748 [136], namely, brown, with white leg gussets. Pantaloons wholly of brown skin are quite common, especially for everyday wear, while striped ones, like No. 74042 [1792], are much less usual and worn specially for full dress. Children’s pantaloons are always brown, and I have seen one pair, worn by a young lad, of lynx skin. The two or three pairs which we saw worn by men were wholly brown. These pantaloons of leg skin with sealskin soles are always worn with the hair out and usually over a pair of under pantaloons of the same shape, but made of softer skins with longer hair, which is worn next the skin, and with stocking feet. The outer pantaloons are discarded in summer and the inner ones only worn, the feet being protected by sealskin waterproof boots, as already stated. The waterproof sealskin pantaloons mentioned in the same connection do not fit so neatly, as they are made with as few seams as possible (usually only one, up the leg) to avoid leakage. They are sewed with the waterproof seam, and held up round the ankle by strings, like the waterproof boots to be described further on. This last-mentioned garment seems to be peculiar to the Point Barrow region (including probably Wainwright Inlet and perhaps the rest of the coast down to Kotzebue Sound). No mention of such a complete protection against wet is to be found in any of the published accounts of the Eskimo elsewhere, nor are there any specimens in the Museum.[N230]

[Footnote N230: Dr. Simpson’s language (op. cit., p. 243) is a little indefinite (“The feet and legs are incased in water-tight sealskin boots”), but probably refers to these as well as to the knee boots. The “outside coat of the same material,” and the boots and outside coat “made all in one, with a drawing string round the face,” mentioned in the same place, appears to have gone wholly out of fashion since his time. At all events, we saw neither, though we continually saw the natives when working in the boats, and these garments, especially the latter, could hardly have failed to attract our attention.]

Boots and breeches united in this way so as to form pantaloons are peculiar to the west of America, where they are universally worn from the Mackenzie district westward and southward. We have no specimens of women’s leg coverings from the Mackenzie district, but Petitot[N231] describes them thus: “Le pantalon * * * fait corps avec la chaussure.” In the east the women always wear breeches separate from the boots, which usually differ from those of the men in their size and length, often reaching to the hips.[N232]

[Footnote N231: Monographie, etc., p. xv.]

[Footnote N232: Bessels, Naturalist, vol. 18, p. 865, Smith Sound; Egede, p. 131, and Crantz, vol. 1, p. 138, Greenland; Parry, 2d Voy., p. 495 and 496, Iglulik, and Kumlien, op. cit., p. 23, Cumberland Gulf. Also in Labrador, see Pl. XVII, Naturalist, vol. 19, No. 6. The old couple whom Franklin met at the Bloody Fall of the Coppermine appear to have worn pantaloons, for he speaks of their “tight leggings sewed to shoes” (1st Exp., vol. 2, p. 180).]

_Stockings._--Next to the skin on the feet and legs the men wear stockings of deerskin, usually of soft, rather long-haired skin, with the hair in. These are usually in three pieces, the leg, 1, toe piece, 2, and sole, 3 (see diagram, Fig. 74). A straight strip about 1 inch wide often runs round the foot between the sole and the other pieces. Stockings of this pattern, but made of very thick winter deerskin, are substituted for the outer boots when deer-hunting in winter in the dry snow, especially when snowshoes are used. They are warm; the flesh side sheds the snow well and the thick hair acts as a sort of wadding which keeps the feet from being galled by the bars and strings of the snowshoes. Many of the deer-hunters in 1883 made rough buskins of this pattern out of the skins of freshly killed deer simply dried, without further preparation.

_Boots and shoes._--Over the stockings are worn boots or shoes with uppers of various kinds of skin, with the hair on, or black tanned sealskin, always fitted to heelless crimped moccasin soles of some different leather, of the pattern which, with some slight modifications of form, is universal among the Eskimo. These soles are made as follows: A “blank” for the sole is cut out, of the shape of the foot, but a couple of inches larger all round. Then, beginning at one side of the ball of the foot, the toe part is doubled over toward the inside of the sole, so that the edges just match. The two parts are then pinched together with the teeth along a line parallel to the folded edge and at a distance from it equal to the depth of the intended fold. This bitten line runs from the edge of the leather as far as it is intended to turn up the side of the sole. A series of similar folds is carried round the toe to a point on the other side of the sole opposite the starting point. In the same way a series of crimps is carried round the heel, leaving an uncrimped space of 2 or 3 inches on each side of the foot. The sole is then sewed to a band or to the edge of the upper, with the thread run through each fold of the crimps. This gathers the sole in at the heel and toe and brings the uncrimped part straight up on each side of the shank. When the folds are all of the same length and but slightly gathered the sole is turned up nearly straight, as at the heel usually, and at the toe also of waterproof boots. When the folds are long and much gathered the sole slopes well in over the foot. Some boots, especially those intended for full dress, have the sole deeper on the sides than at the toe, so that the top of the sole comes to a point at the toe. The ordinary pattern is about the same height all round and follows the shape of the foot, being rather more gathered in over the toe than at the heel. The “blank” for the sole is cut out by measuring the size of the foot on the leather and allowing by eye the margin which is to be turned up. The crimping is also done by eye. Any irregularity in the length of the crimps can be remedied by pressing out the crease. I have never seen at Point Barrow the ivory knives, such as are used at Norton Sound for arranging the crimps.

Different kinds of leather are used for the soles, and each kind is supposed to be best suited for a particular purpose. The beautiful white urine-tanned sealskin is used for winter wear when the snow is dry, but is not suited for standing the roughness and dampness of the salt-water ice. For this purpose sealskin dressed with the hair on and worn flesh side out is said to be the very best, preferable even to the various waterproof skins used for summer boot soles. For waterproof soles are used oil-dressed skins[N233] of the walrus, bearded seal, polar bear, or, best of all, the white whale. This last makes a beautiful light yellow translucent leather about 0.1 inch thick, which is quite durable and keeps out water for a long time. It is highly prized and quite an article of trade among the natives, a pair of soles usually commanding a good price. These Eskimo appear to be the only ones who have discovered the excellence of this material for waterproof soles, as there is no mention to be found of its use elsewhere. The “narwhal skin” spoken of by Dr. Simpson[N234] is probably this material, as he calls it “Kel-lel´-lu-a,” which is the ordinary word for white whale at Point Barrow. The narwhal is very rare in these waters, while the white whale is comparatively abundant. Dr. Simpson appears not to have seen the animal from which the skin was obtained. It is, however, by no means impossible that _some_ skins of the narwhal, which when dressed would be indistinguishable from the white whale skins, are obtained from the eastern natives or elsewhere. Such crimped soles are in use among the Eskimo everywhere, varying but little in general pattern. The Greenland boots are specially noticeable for the neatness of the crimping, while specimens in the Museum from the central region are decidedly slovenly in their workmanship. The boots worn by the natives of Plover Bay have the sole narrowed at the shank and hardly coming over the foot except at the toe and heel, where they are crimped, but less deeply than usual. This style of sole very much resembles those of a pair of Kamchatdale boots in the National Museum, which, however, are turned up without crimping, as is the case with the boots used by the Aleuts on the Commander Islands, of which Dr. L. Stejneger has kindly shown me a specimen. There is a folded “welt” of sealskin in the seam between the upper and sole of the Plover Bay boots. I am informed by Capt. Herendeen that the natives have been taught to put this in by the whalemen who every year purchase large numbers of boots on the Siberian coast, for use in the Arctic. Similar welts, which are very unusual on Eskimo boots, are to be seen on some brought by Mr. Nelson from Kings Island and Norton Sound. The winter boots usually have uppers of deerskin, generally the short-haired skin from the legs. Mountain-sheep skin is sometimes used for full-dress boots, and sealskin with the hair out for working boots. The latter is not a good material, as the snow sticks to it badly. There are four pairs of men’s winter boots in the collection, from which No. 56750 [111] (Fig. 75) has been selected as the type of the everyday pattern. They are made of deer-leg skin with white sealskin soles. Leg and upper are in four pieces,[N235] back 1, two sides 2 2, and front 3; 1 and 3 are gored at _a a a_ to fit the swell of the calf; 1 and 3 are of dark skin, and 2 2 lighter colored, especially along the middle. The bottom is cut off accurately to fit the sole but the top is left irregular, as this is concealed by the breeches. The boots are held up round the ankles by two tie-strings of sealthong, sewed in between the sole and the band, one on each side just under the middle of the ankle. They are long enough to cross above the heel, pass once or twice round the ankle, which fits more loosely than the rest of the boot, and tie in front. On each heel is a large round patch of sealskin with the hair on and pointing toward the toe (to prevent slipping). These patches are carefully “blind-stitched” on so that the stitches do not show on the outside.

[Footnote N233: Probably prepared like the boat covers described by Crantz, vol. 1, p. 167, by drying them without removing all of their own blubber.]

[Footnote N234: Op. cit., pp. 242-266.]

[Footnote N235: See diagram, Fig. 76.]

Boots of this style are the common everyday wear of the men, sometimes made wholly of dark deerskin and sometimes variegated. They are often made of a pattern like that of the lower part of the women’s pantaloons; that is, with the uppers separate from the leg pieces, which are brown, with four white gussets on the calf. Fig. 77, No. 56759 [91], is one of a pair of full-dress boots of a slightly different pattern. The leg pieces are the same in number as in No. 56750, and put together in the same way, but 2 and 3 are of a different shape.[N236] They are made of deer-leg skins, each piece with a lighter streak down the middle. The soles are of white sealskin, finely crimped, with the edge coming to a point at the toe, and the five ornamental bands are of sealskin, alternately black and white. A strip of edging three-fourths of an inch wide is inserted in the seam between 2 and 3 on each side. The light stripes are mountain-sheep skin and the dark ones the usual young fawnskin, tagged with red worsted. The leg reaches to just below the knee, and is hemmed over on the inside, to hold the drawstring, which comes out behind. There are strings at the ankles as before.

[Footnote N236: See diagram, Fig. 78.]

Fig. 79, No. 89834 [770], is one of a pair of almost precisely the same pattern as the last, but made of mountain-sheep skin. The soles are more deeply turned up all round and have three ornamental bands of sealskin around the edge, black, white, and black. Edging is inserted into both the seams on each side. It is strips of mountain-sheep skin and a dark brown deerskin, tagged with red worsted, with the edge which laps over the side piece cut into oblique tags. There are no tiestrings, as the soles are turned up high enough to stay in place without them. These boots were brought from the east by one of the Nuwŭk trading parties in 1882. Fig. 80, No. 56749 [110], is also a full-dress boot, with soles like the last and no tiestrings. The leg is of two pieces of dark brown deerskin with the hair clipped short. These pieces are shaped like 2 in No. 56750, and the inner is larger, so that it laps round the leg, bringing the seam on the outside. The leg is enlarged to fit the swell of the calf by a large triangular gusset from the knee to the midleg, meeting the inside piece in an oblique seam across the calf. Instead of a hem, the top of the leg has a half-inch band sewed round it and a binding for the drawstring above this. Edging is inserted in the front seam, and obliquely across the outside of the leg. That in the front seam is three narrow strips of deerskin, dark in the middle and light on each side. The other is of mountain-sheep skin in three strips, piped with fawnskin and tagged with worsted.

The boots belong with the breeches, No. 56759. They fairly represent the style of full-dress boots worn with the loose-bottomed breeches. They all have drawstrings just below the knee, and often have no tie-strings at the ankles. The eastern Eskimo are everywhere described as wearing the boots tied at the top with a drawstring and the bottoms of the breeches usually loose and hanging down on them. Tying down the breeches over the tops of the boots, as is done at Point Barrow, is an improvement on the eastern fashion, as it closes the garments at the knee so as to prevent the entrance of cold air. The same result is obtained in an exactly opposite way by the people of Smith Sound, who, according to Bessels (Naturalist, vol. 18, p. 865), tie the boots over the breeches.

All fur garments, including boots, are sewed in the same way, usually with reindeer sinew, by fitting the edges together and sewing them “over and over” on the “wrong” side. The waterproof boots of black sealskin, however, are sewed with an elaborate double seam, which is quite waterproof, and is made as follows: The two pieces are put together, flesh side to flesh side, so that the edge of one projects beyond the other, which is then “blind-stitched” down by sewing it “over and over” on the edge, taking pains to run the stitches only part way through the other piece. The seam is then turned and the edge of the outer piece is turned in and “run” down to the grain side of the under with fine stitches which do not run through to the flesh side of it. Thus in neither seam are there holes through both pieces at once. The sewing is done with fine sinew thread and very fine round needles (the women used to ask for “little needles, like a hair”), and the edge of the leather is softened by wetting it in the mouth. A similar waterproof seam is used in sewing together boat covers.

There is one pair of waterproof boots in the collection (No. 76182 [1794] Fig. 81). The tops are of black dressed sealskin, reaching to the knee and especially full on the instep and ankle, which results from their being made with the least possible number of seams, to reduce the chance of leaking. The soles are of white whale skin, turned up about 1½ inches all around. The leg and upper are made all in one piece so that the double water-tight seam runs down the front of the leg to the instep, and then diagonally across the foot to the quarter on one side. The bottom is cut off accurately to fit the top of the sole. The edges of the upper and the sole are put together so that the inside of the former comes against the inside of the latter, and the two are “run” together with fine stitches, with a stout double under-thread running through them along the surface of the upper. The ornamental band at the top is of white sealskin “run” on with strong dark thread, and the checkered pattern is made by drawing a strip of black skin through slits in the white. Round the top of the band is sewed a binding of black sealskin, which holds a drawstring of sinew braid. The sole is kept up in shape and the boot made to fit round the ankle by a string of sealskin twine passed through four loops, one on each side just back of the ball of the foot, and one on each quarter. These loops are made of little strips of white whale skin, doubled over and sewed to the edge of the sole on the outside. The ends of the string are passed through the front loop so that the bight comes across the ball of the foot, then through the hinder loops, and are crossed above the heel, carried once or twice around the ankle, and tied in front.

Such boots are universally worn in summer. The men’s boots are usually left with an irregular edge at the top, and are held up by the breeches, while the women’s usually have white bands around the tops with drawstrings. Half-boots of the same material, reaching to midleg, without drawstrings, or shoes reaching just above the ankle with a string round the top are sometimes worn over the deerskin boots. Similar shoes of deerskin are sometimes worn in place of boots.

Waterproof boots of black sealskin are universally employed by Eskimo and by the Aleuts. These boots stand water for a long time without getting wet through, but when they become wet they must be turned inside out and dried very slowly to prevent them from shrinking, and worked soft with a stone skin-dressing tool or the teeth. The natives prefer to dry them in the sun. When the black epidermis wears off this leather is no longer waterproof, so that the women are always on the watch for white spots, which are mended with water-tight patches as soon as possible.

In the early spring, before it thaws enough to render waterproof boots necessary, the surface of the snow becomes very smooth and slippery. To enable themselves to walk on this surface without falling, the natives make a kind of “creeper” out of strips of sealskin. These are doubled lengthwise, and generally bent into a half-moon or horseshoe shape, with the folded edges on the outside of the curve, sewed on the toe and heel of the sealskin sole, as represented in Fig. 82.

PARTS OF DRESS.

_Belts (tapsĭ)._--The belt which is used to hold up the pantaloons or breeches is simply a stout strip of skin tied round the waist. The girdle, which is always worn outside of the frock, except when the weather is warm or the wearer heated by exercise, is very often a similar strap of deerskin, or perhaps wolfskin. Often, however, and especially for full dress, the men wear a handsome belt woven from feathers, and the women one made of wolverines’ toes. There are in the collection two the former and one of the latter.