Tour the East Hall of the National Museum After the First Fifty Years

"The foreskin jumper, or kapetall, is a closed shirt, fitting very loosely to the person, but adapted to the head and neck by an almost air-tight hood, the nessak. Underneath the kapetall is a similar garment, but destitute of the hood, which is a shirt made of bird-skins, chewed in the mouth by the women until they are perfectly soft, and it is worn with this unequaled down next the body. More than 500 auks have been known to contribute to a garment of this description. The lower extremities are guarded by a pair of bear-skin breeches, the nannooke. The foot-gear consists of a bird-skin sock with a padding of grass over the sole. Outside of this is a bear-skin leg. In this dress a man will sleep upon his sledge with the atmosphere at below our freezing point. Dr. Kane, however, had to add to the dress described furs and woolens, layer upon layer, inside, like the shards of an artichoke, till he was rounded into absolute obesity."

Return to start of the East Hall of the National Museum in 1886