A NEEDLE'S VALUE | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 6, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 14.

A NEEDLE'S VALUE.

A RECENT traveler among the Eskimo lands speaks of the little sewing needle as a priceless treasure. He says: "The conditions of life of these people, and the value in their eyes of articles which to us are so insignificant and common that we think no more of them than we do of breathing, are almost beyond our conception.

"Imagine, for example, one of these Eskimo women, whose duty it is to make the garments of her husband, herself, and her children; and an idea of the amount of work that this means may be obtained when I say that the bird-skin shirt, an indispensable article of dress of every individual, young and old, is made up of from seventy to one hundred bird skins, neatly sewed together—imagine, say, a woman situated like this and having during her entire lifetime but one opportunity to obtain a needle. When that one opportunity is offered, if it can be obtained in no other way, she gives for it all she possesses, and once the shining bit of steel is in her possession, an ivory case is made for it, and the case is immediately fastened permanently about the owner's neck.

"If she breaks the point of the needle, she searches perhaps for days until she finds a bit of stone fine enough and sharp enough to grind a new point on the needle. If she breaks the eye, the shank of the needle is laboriously etched and roughened with stones until she can attach the sinew which forms her thread, in the same way that the shoemaker attaches his waxed thread to his bristle. And when the owner dies, the precious article is handed down to her favorite daughter."—Selected.