Eskimo Life

e east coast of Greenland, stands before my mind's eye! I see two brown laughing countenances, surrounded by long, coal-black hair, beaming, even amid the ice, with bright

irst glance seem to most of us

gether with the round cheeks, give the lower part of the face a great preponderance in the physiognomy. When the mouth is drawn up in an oleaginous smile, two rows of strong white teeth reveal themselves. One receives the impression, upo

r ideas of beauty! I soon came to find these brown faces, gleaming with health and fat, really pleasing. They refle

inly not beautiful; and yet there was a certain style in them, too. Toil had left its traces upon their wrinkled countenances, but also a life of rude plenty and a habit of good-humour

a rule, a somewhat southern appearance, with their dark hair, dark eyebrows and eyes, and brown complexion. A remarkably Jewish cast of countenance sometimes appears among them. Types of

ight. Their frame produces, on the whole, an impression of strength, especially the upper part of the body. The men have broad shoulders, strong, muscular arms, and a good chest; but, on the other hand, one notices that their thighs are comparatively narrow, and their

ne beauty. They certainly seemed to me considerably narrower than those of European women; but it is hard to say how much of this effect is to be ascribed to difference o

, however, is generally much intensified, especially in the case of men and old women, by a total lack of cleanliness. As an indication of their habits in this particular, it will be sufficient if

e small of their back a bluish-black patch, about the size of a sixpenny piece, from which the dark colour of the skin seems to spread as they grow older. Holm makes a note to the same

are probably aware that its most noteworthy peculiarity lies in the fact that the women dress almost like the

forms, with its upstanding selvage of black dog-skin, a sort of collar round the neck. At the wrists, too, the timiak is edged with black dog-skin, like a showy fur overcoat among us. Above the timiak, an outer vest (anorak) is worn, now for the most part made of cotton. Trousers of seal-skin, or of European cloth, are worn upon the legs; o

The wrists, too, are edged with black dog-skin. The cotton vest above this garment is of course as brightly coloured as possible, red, blue, green, yellow, and round its lower edge there generally runs a broad variegated band of cotton, or, if possible, of silk. Trousers are worn on the legs, generally of mottled seal-skin, but sometimes of reindeer-skin. They are considerably shorter than the m

rdinary anorak, except that at the back there is a great enlargement or pouch, in which they carry the child all day long, whatever work

iable among the Eskimos as they are with us. Even in this respect, how

oo beautiful and effective to be concealed. Instead, however, of cutting away their bodices from above, like our beauties at home, they began below, and made their anoraks so short that between them and the t

always use seal-skins instead of bird-skins for their jackets. In North Greenland, too, seal-skin and reindee

d women had all a narrow band around their loins, a detail which my bashfulness had prevented me from discovering. This remarkable observation of our friend Balto is corroborated by the majority of travellers who have undertaken researches on the subject

DOOR DRESS (

tume. (2) Fe

ver Greenland, right up to the northernmost settlemen

ooms, where they would be particularly insanitary. When the Europeans came to the country, however, this free-and-easy custom offended their sense of propriety, and the missionaries preached against it. Thus it happens tha

when a European enters their houses; but I greatly fear that this is rather an affectation which they think will please us, than a result of real modesty; and when t

k from the face by means of a band or thong. Sometimes they take it into their heads to cut the hair of children, and the children so treated must continue all through their lives to cut their hair, and must also observe certain fixed

of various colours. Unmarried women wear a red ribbon, which they exchange for green if they have had a child. Married women wear a blue, and widows a black ribbon. If a widow wants to marry again she wi

omen, and as they are scarcely less vain than their European sisters, they draw the hair so tightly together that it is gradually torn away from the forehead, the temples and the neck, whenc

it the glistening appearance which is prized as a beauty, they have furthermore the habi

so in former days; and as to the insects they come across in the pr

their own forefathers, not so many generations ago, conducted themselves not so very differently. Let them read the accoun