Thursday 3 April 2008

Life near the North Pole...





The residents of the North Pole live in Alaska, Siberia, Canada, Greenland, and Lapland. The people are called the Inuits ( Greenland), the Unangan ( Alaska), the Sámi (Lapland). They used to live from fishing and hunting. Everything of the animal was used either for food but also for clothing and the oil of course among other things for lamps.
The animals in these areas are the polar bear, the snow fox, sea lions, the seal, the walrus. Their skins, and intestines were used for clothes. Their bones were important for the production of tools. Nowadays many of these people live like we do with clothes of the same material. I found the clothes made of intestines very strange, but interesting .
These clothes were waterproof , because the seams were sewn with a waterproof stitch. Prepared intestines of sea lions, seals, walrus, otters, or bears were sewn in horizontal strips to each other. The kamleika has its strips in a vertical direction. It was worn by men as an outer layer of clothing while kayaking. In the village also a jacket made of intestine protected the fur or bird skin clothing underneath against snow and rain. Intestine kamleikas fell out of use in the early twentieth century

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your stories and photos are nice as it always is. I will comment more at another time as I just returned from hospital and am not back to normal.

Abraham Lincoln in Brookville, Ohio.

Reader Wil said...

Hi Toner thank you for the visit!

Reader Wil said...

Hi Abe what a wonderful surprise to get your comment! This is a good sign today! I am glad you are back from hospital! Have a speedy recovery and take care! God bless!