Fig. 13.—Ground plan and section of winter house in Mackenzie region.
At Iglulik the permanent houses were dome shaped, built of bones, with the interstices filled with turf, and had a short, low passage.[134] No other descriptions of permanent houses are to be found until we reach the people of the Mackenzie region, who build houses of timbers, of rather a peculiar pattern, covered with turf, made in the form of a cross, of which three or all four of the arms are the sleeping rooms, the floor being raised into a low banquette.[135] (See Fig. 13.) Petitot[136] gives a very excellent detailed description of the houses of the Anderson River people. According to his account the passageway is built up of blocks of ice. He mentions one house with a single alcove like those at Point Barrow.[137]
We have no description of the houses at the villages between Point Barrow and Kotzebue Sound, but at the latter place was found the large triple house described by Dr. Simpson, and compared by him with that described by Richardson, though in some respects it more closely resembles those seen by Hooper.[138] This house really has a fireplace in the middle, and in this approaches the houses of the southern Eskimo of Alaska. According to Dr. Simpson,[139a] “a modification of the last form, built of undressed timber, and sometimes of very small dimensions, with two recesses opposite each other, and raised a foot above the middle space, is very common on the shores of Kotzebue Sound,” but he does not make it plain whether houses like those used at Point Barrow are not used there also.
This form of house is very like the large snow houses seen by Lieut. Ray at hunting camps on Kulugrua. Dr. Simpson describes less permanent structures which are used on the rivers, consisting of small trees split and laid “inclining inward in a pyramidal form towards a rude square frame in the center, supported by two or more upright posts. Upon these the smaller branches of the felled trees are placed, and the whole, except the aperture at the top and a small opening on one side, is covered with earth or only snow.”[139b] These buildings, and especially the temporary ones described by Dr. Simpson, used on the Nunatak, probably gave rise to the statement we heard at Point Barrow that “the people south had no iglus and lived only in tents.” The houses at Norton Sound are quite different from the Point Barrow form. The floor, which is not planked, is 3 or 4 feet under ground, and the passage enters one side of the house, instead of coming up through the floor, and a small shed is built over the outer entrance to the passage. The fire is built in the middle of the house, under the aperture in the roof which serves for chimney and window, and there is seldom any banquette, but the two ends of the room are fenced off by logs laid on the ground, to serve as sleeping places, straw and spruce boughs being laid down and covered with grass mats.[140]
The houses in the Kuskokwim region are quite similar to those just described, but are said to be built above ground in the interior, though thy are still covered with sods.[141] There are no published accounts of the houses of the St. Lawrence islanders, but they are known to inhabit subterranean or partly underground earth-covered houses, built of wood, while the Asiatic Eskimo have abandoned the old underground houses, which were still in use at the end of the last century, and have adopted the double-skin tent of the Chukches.[142] In addition to the cases quoted by Dall, Capt. Cook speaks of finding the natives of St. Lawrence Bay in 1778 living in partly underground earth-covered houses.[143]
[Arrangement in villages.]—
The village of Utkiavwĭñ occupies a narrow strip of ground along the edge of the cliffs of Cape Smyth, about 1,000 yards long, and extending some 150 yards inland. The houses are scattered among the hillocks without any attempt at regularity and at different distances from each other, sometimes alone, and sometimes in groups of two contiguous houses, which often have a common cache frame. Nuwŭk, from Dr. Simpson’s account[144] and what we saw in our hurried visits, is scattered in the same way over the knolls of Point Barrow, but has its greatest extension in an east and west direction. From Simpson’s account (ibid.) double houses appear more common at Nuwŭk than at Utkiavwĭñ, and he even speaks of a few threefold ones. All the houses agree in facing south. This is undoubtedly to admit the greatest amount of light in winter, and seems to be a tolerably general custom, at least among the northern Eskimo.[145]