Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition: Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442Murdoch, John
History
Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition: Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442
Murdoch, John
Eskimos -- Alaska -- Barrow, Point, Region
[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).]
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--Pattern of stocking.]
_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.
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