240 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

throat complaints. Nor was she permitted, while in her impure state, even to
touch her own head, the seat of her mind and thoughts. To prevent immediate
contact with her fingers, she wore suspended at her necklace or belt, along
with the drinking tube, a sort of two-pronged comb or rather scratcher, a
little implement of wood which affected the shape of fig. 641,

Fig. 64.

This last was common to both pubescent girls and boys. The latter also
tied cords of sinews wound with swan’s down at the wrists and around each leg,
as in the case of the girls, which they wore for the space of one year, after
Which they were regarded as having reached the state of manhood. A faithful
observance of this rite guarded them against precocious infirmities, and prepared
them for an active life and success in the chase.

To return to the weaker sex. It was at the time of puberty that the piercing
of the lower lip was first practised, preparatory to receiving the labret among
the Babines. When, after the insertion of several pieces of bone gradually
enlarged, the resulting hole was of the required size, the labret proper, a plug
of bone or hard wood, was inserted therein. This Harmon quaintly says had
“the shape of the wheel of a pulley”. He adds that “as the girls grow up,
this wheel is enlarged, so that a woman of thirty years of age will have one
nearly as large as a dollar. This they consider adds much to their beauty;
but these wheels are certainly very inconvenient, and to us they appear very
uncouth and disagreeable” 2.

I agree with the old fur-trader. A wheel may come very handy when in
its proper place; but to have one in the lip must, indeed, have been “very
inconvenient”. Pity the slaves of fashion, ancient and modern.

Among the Hare Indians, when a gitl had attained the age of puberty,
her mother would tell her: “If anything of a troubling character should happen
to you, put on your cape and hood, and lie down”. As soon as she had her
first flow, she would therefore cover her head and go olf in a hurry to the

"I have never seen the scratcher in use; but the drinking tube was to a late date quite
common among the Babines. It was made of the larger wing bones of swans.

* Op. cit., p. 266. The labret was also worn by some Yukon tribes (Dall, “Masks and
Labrets”, p. 151).