n the winter time.

To judge by the eagerness with which the women received our beads,
especially small white ones, as well as any other article of that kind,
we might suppose them very fond of personal ornament. Yet of all that
they obtained from us in this way at Winter Island, scarcely anything
ever made its appearance again during our stay there, except a ring or
two on the finger, and some bracelets of beads round the wrist; the
latter of these was probably considered as a charm of some kind or
other. We found among them, at the time of our first intercourse, a
number of black and white beads, disposed alternately on a string of
sinew, and worn in this manner. They would also sometimes hang a small
bunch of these, or a button or two, in front of their jackets and hair;
and many of them, in the course of the second winter, covered the whole
front of their jackets with the beads they received from us.

Among their personal ornaments must be reckoned that mode of marking the
body called tattooing, which, of the customs not essential to the
comfort or happiness of mankind, is perhaps the most extensively
practised throughout the world. Among these people it seems to be an
ornament of indispensable importance to the women, not one of them being
without it. The operation is performed about the age of ten, or
sometimes earlier, and has nothing to do with marriage, except that,
being considered in the light of a personal charm, it may serve to
recommend them as wives. The parts of the body thus marked are their
faces, arms, hands, thighs, and in some few women the breasts, but never
the feet, as in Greenland. The operation, which, by way of curiosity,
most of our gentlemen had practised on their arms, is very expeditiously
managed by passing a needle and thread, the latter covered with
lampblack and oil, under the epidermis, according to a pattern
previously marked out upon the skin. Several stitches being thus taken
at once, the thumb is pressed upon the part while the thread is drawn
through, by which means the colouring matter is retained, and a
permanent dye of a blue tinge imparted to the skin. A woman expert at
this business will perform it very quickly and with great regularity,
but seldom without drawing blood in many places, and occasioning some
inflammation. Where so large a portion of the surface of the body is to
be covered, it must become a painful as well as tedious process,
especially as, for want of needle