After the skins had been put on the platform Achatinǵwah brought in two Eskimo lamps with which to heat and light the igloo.
These were cut out of soapstone by her father with his knife, and were shaped like our dustpans. She filled them with small pieces of blubber from the seal, and then placed dried moss across the straight side. This she lighted, and the heat from it melted the blubber and soaked it up, burning it like a wick. These lamps must be tended all the time, or the smoke from them would soon cover everything with a greasy soot.
“ESKIMO TOYS CARVED FROM THE TEETH OF THE WALRUS”
Near the top of the igloo above the lamps, Achatinǵwah’s mother fastened a sort of lattice-work rack, made by lashing sticks together with sinew. On this the members of the family put their wet stockings, mittens, and shirts to dry.
Close down over each lamp she hung an oblong-shaped pot, also made of soapstone, in which the snow is melted for drinking-water. The Eskimos never use water for any other purpose. They had never heard of a bath until AH-NI-GHI´-TO’S father and mother came among them, and the most they ever did was to wipe their faces with a greasy bird-skin.
Achatinǵwah now helped her mother bring their stock of bear, deer, and seal skins into the igloo and spread them on the platform, and the family was settled for the winter.
Over the stone lamps Achatinǵwah’s mother cooked their food, and on the platform the entire family slept.
Days when it was too cold and stormy to go to the ship this platform was the playground of Achatinǵwah and her little brother, where they amused themselves with little figures of men and women, toy sledges and dogs, and canoes; bears, seals, foxes, walrus, and the other strange animals of the Snowland, carved by their father from the teeth of the walrus; or played “cat’s cradle,” making Toó-loo-ah the raven, Ter-i-a-níah the fox, Oo-kud´-ah the hare, and Ka-lil´-o-wah the great narwhal, with sinew strings. Sometimes they played “cup and ball” with a slender ivory pin and the bone of a seal with two holes drilled in it.
Then at night they snuggled warmly under the thick, heavy furs, hugging each other tightly as they heard their father and mother talking of “Tor-naŕ-suk” the “evil one,” or how “Nan-nook´-soah,” the great white bear, had carried off and eaten one of their relatives.