Eskimo Jacket Ornaments of Ivory Suggesting Function of Bone Pendants Found in Beothuk Sites in Newfoundland

• Published in: American Antiquity
• Main Author: Speck, Frank G.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 1940
• Subjects: Museology; Archeology; Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous); History; Newfoundland; Indian; Beothuk; eskimo*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/275284; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0002731600032315

The large number of carved bone ornaments found in sites of the extinct Beothuk of Newfoundland and illustrated in some abundance in Howley's monograph on this tribe, have been a source of speculation among American archaeologists r as to their associations with Eskimo or Indian art. Without knowing positively that these objects are pendant ornaments for the fur coats worn by this and other groups in the northeast there has been a tendency by inr ference to regard them as such. The fact that similarly appearing carved pendants of ivory are known from the Labrador Eskimo in general, and are also typical of coat decoration of the Baffinlanders, as well as other bands of Eskimo of the central group, puts the question to test, and points to the probability that the Beothuk objects served a similar purpose in clothing decoration.