Polar Bear Skin Mittens
date: label: Accession Date
content: 18 May 1865
name: label: Donor Name
content: Roderick R. MacFarlane
notes: label: Notes
content: Records in the SI Archives of the Office of Distribution say this was transferred [to whom?] in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1867 but apparently either this is incorrect or it was later returned to the Museum.
label: Notes
content: Source of the information below: Inuvialuit Pitqusiit Inuuniarutait: Inuvialuit Living History, The MacFarlane Collection website, by the Inuvialuit Cultural Resource Centre (ICRC), Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (website credits here http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/posts/12 ), entry on this artifact http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/items/257 , retrieved 12-10-2019: A pair of mittens made of polar bear hide. Around the wrist of each is a cuff made of a folded over strip of caribou skin. One of the mittens has been repaired with a small sewn patch. More information here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/41: Mittens with separate thumbs were used for keeping the hands warm in winter. They usually have the hair on the outside at the back of the mitten, which can be held against one's face to keep it warm. The mittens usually are quite short, as the fur trim on the sleeves of parkas protected the exposed wrist.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 21 Apr 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 2
place: label: Place
content: Anderson River, Northwest Territories, Canada, North America
topic: label: Topic
content: Ethnology
culture: label: Culture
content: Eskimo, Inuit, Inuvialuk (Inuvialuit)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Anthropology
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: NMNH - Anthropology Dept.
identifier: label: Accession Number
content: 65A00065
label: USNM Number
content: E1084-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Mitten