Infant's Parka
date: label: Accession Date
content: 7 Jan 1869
name: label: Donor Name
content: Roderick R. MacFarlane
notes: 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/62 , retrieved 2-7-2020: A small infant's parka made with fetal or newborn caribou hide. Strips and pieces of dark and light skins make decorative patterns on the hood, around the hem and on the back of the parka. The opening for the head is trimmed with red wool cloth. Tufts of wolverine surround the sides of the hood. The hem is trimmed with wolverine fur coloured red on the skin side. The shape of the hood, the hem and decoration are similar to women's parkas, suggesting that this garment was for a girl baby. More information on parkas here: http://www.inuvialuitlivinghistory.ca/item_types/44: In winter men, women and children wore skin parkas (qusungat) over an inner garment (atigi). They were skillfully tailored using many individual pieces of skin (usually caribou) chosen for the thickness of the hide and qualities of the hair. Men's and women's parkas each had their own style, evident in the shape of the hood and the hem, and children's clothing mirrored the clothing of adults. Each parka was made to fit one particular individual, with the seamstress measuring with hand and eye and following complex patterns that were handed down from generation to generation. Parkas were decorated by incorporating pieces of skin with shorn hair and contrasting colours, and were sometimes coloured with dyes. The hood, cuffs and hem of the parka were usually trimmed with wolverine fur, which kept the cold out and because frost was easy to brush off the thick and stiff fur.
label: Record Last Modified
content: 21 Apr 2020
label: Specimen Count
content: 1
place: label: Place
content: 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: 69A00012
label: USNM Number
content: E7651-0
objectType: label: Object Type
content: Parka