The Snow Baby: A true story with true picturesPeary, Josephine Diebitsch
General
The Snow Baby: A true story with true pictures
Peary, Josephine Diebitsch
Arctic regions -- Juvenile literature; Eskimos -- Juvenile literature; Peary, Marie Ahnighito, 1893-1978
After a long, long time the terrible night began to draw to an end, and
every clear day at noon there was an hour or two of daylight.
[Illustration: _Bed on which Baby Lived_]
[Illustration]
It was decided that when the sun did return, no matter how cold it might
be, baby was to go out every day, so one of the Eskimo women was busy
making a little Eskimo suit for her, all of furs.
There were only two pieces in this suit,—a little hooded coat, and a
pair of little trousers and boots in one.
Boys and girls, and men and women, all wear trousers in this Snowland.
[Illustration]
The softest and warmest fox and baby-deer skins were selected for these
clothes. The little trousers or nannookies were made with the fur on the
outside, and reached from her waist, where they were fastened with a
drawstring to her ankles, where a fur boot made of the same warm
deerskin, but with the fur on the inside, next the foot, was sewed to
each leg, thus making it impossible for the cold air to get to her
little feet and legs.
[Illustration: “_They were not very Clean_”]
The kapetah, or foxskin coat, was after the same pattern as your
sweaters, that is, without any opening down the front or back, and to
the neck was sewed a round hood, the opening made to just fit about her
little face. This coat her mother pulled on over baby’s head and well
down over her nannookies, so that here too no cold air could chill the
little girl.
About the wrists and around the face opening of the hood, foxtails were
sewed, which helped very much to keep her face and hands warm. This
costume was made by a woman named AH-NI-GHI´-TO; so, when the baby was
christened, she too was called AH-NI-GHI´-TO. She was also named Marie
for her only aunt, who was waiting in the far-off home land to greet her
little niece.
[Illustration: “_There were only two Pieces in this Suit_”]
[Illustration]
At last, one day about the middle of February, the great yellow sun
popped up above the tops of the mountains and covered everything with
the brightest sunlight.
Little AH-NI-GHI´-TO was asleep when the sun first looked into the room,
but in a few minutes she woke up, and as the room had been specially
warmed to give her a sun bath, her mother took her out of her little
nest and placed her, all white and naked, in the sunlight on the bed.
[Illustration]
How the big blue eyes did open at the strange sight. How she laughed and
jumped and stretched her little hands out in the yellow light, just as
if she was bathing in perfumed golden water. It was the first time she
had ever seen the sun.
After this, every sunshiny day she had her sun bath, when she would try
to seize the sunbeams slanting through the room, and failing in this
would try to pick up bits of sunlight on the bed.
[Illustration: “_Stretched her Little Hands out in the Yellow Light_”]
On every pleasant day she was dressed in her little fur suit, tucked
into her deerskin bag, and carried out.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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