Arctic clothing, £25.00
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Detail from the engraving Nakaho & His Wife Oomna after a drawing by G.F. Lyon (Parry 1824)
AOA Ethno 1986.Am19.11;AOA Ethno 1986.Am10.14 (boots)
Africa, Oceania, Americas
Annuraaq: clothing in the Arctic
Man's winter outfit, made by Leonie Qrunnut
This man's winter outfit consists of an outer parka (qulittaq) and an inner parka (atigi), inner and outer trousers, several layers of footwear, and mittens. Except for the sealskin boots, all the garments are made of caribou skin.
In Igloolik, caribou was the most common material for making winter clothing. Caribou skin is very warm; the hair growth is twice as dense as on seal skin, and the hollow guard hairs enclose air that acts as insulation against the cold.
'Of course
caribou skin was the only source of clothing that we could get when
I was young. The textiles that were available to us were not good
for winter wear. As a matter of fact, I do not consider them to be
the type of material that you could use in winter. I am still like
that; whenever I am wearing textiles, I have to put on layers and
layers of clothing on my body and legs, and even at that it will
not warm me up. This is because I am a real Inuit. I do not
consider textiles warm
clothing.'
Niomi Panikpakuttuk,
1996
Other view: detail from the engraving Nakaho & His Wife Oomna after a drawing by G.F. Lyon (Parry 1824), showing that around 1820, the parkas of men from Igloolik had long backflaps.