Page:Eskimo Life.djvu/46

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26
ESKIMO LIFE

travellers who have undertaken researches on the subject, so I am bound to believe them. This band, which the travellers are pleased to designate under-drawers—how far it deserves such a name I will leave to the reader to judge from the accompanying illustration—is, I am told, called nâtit by the Greenlanders.

In former days this simple indoor garb was worn all over Greenland, right up to the northernmost settlements on Smith's Sound, where, indeed, it is still in use.

GREENLAND INDOOR DRESS (EAST COAST)
(1) Male costume. (2) Female costume.

This light raiment is, of course, very wholesome; for the many layers of skins in the outdoor dress greatly impede transpiration, and it is therefore a natural impulse which leads the Eskimo to throw them off in the warm rooms, 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 that the