Clothing from East Greenland IV. Materials and their processing

Bird skin
East Greenlanders, like most of the peoples in the Arctic region, use bird skins for making under garments. The processing of bird skins repeats, to a large extent, the method of working seal skins. The main treatments include washing the skins, scraping them free of fat and remnants of flesh, tanning with soapsuds (with urine, in former times), and drying them. Some thirty skins from adult eider ducks were needed to make woman's coat, while a man's coat needed approximately twenty-five skins. A child's coat was made from eight to fourteen skins, depending on the child's age.


Cap made of eider skin, feathers included. RMV 1020-29

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