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Towards the back of the tent, inside, a board is fixed from side to side, and the whole space between this and the walls is filled with a deep bed of heather, spread on top with deerskins. This is the sleeping place of the family, in the dark half of the dwelling. Additional deerskins serve as blankets, and lie about the bed, rolled up, during the day. The rest of the furnishing is very simple.
Inside the entrance hang the bags of seal oil used for lighting or cooking purposes. Then there are the cooking pots (“kettles,” as they are called), deep, oblong boxes of soapstone without a lid. And the lamps, also of soapstone, and in shape not unlike a crumb tray, with a raised lip and a little shelf at the back for refuse bits of wick. These “lamps” are fed with seal oil. The wick consists of dried moss and gossypium. This is moulded into pellets; a row of wick balls is set on the rim of the lamp and then kneaded down into a line upon it and kept carefully trimmed, so that the edge of flame remains clear and bright. All the cooking is done over a “lamp” of this description, unless over a fire of heather and driftwood out in the open. The Eskimo housewife uses a blubber hammer (a stone, or mallet of ivory tusk set in a wooden handle), to beat down the seal or whale fat into oil for her lamps. Her furs, and her cooking pots, together with her needles, and knives and implements for dressing skins, constitute the Eskimo woman’s domestic outfit; a training in the clever use of them is the Eskimo girl’s education, and [[75]]the dowry of the Eskimo bride. The tent and these impedimenta are portable enough for the wanderings of the arctic summer, and it is remarkable what an amazing host and medley of belongings can be stowed in the family travelling boat, and unloaded from it—a veritable Pandora’s box—at the next bit of summer beach.
The winter locale and the winter dwelling is altogether another story. The tribe having chosen the site of a village in some sheltered bay, near a frozen lake or stream (or, at any rate, where ice or water can be obtained), will return to it year after year, and remain there throughout the long dark season, until the time comes round again for the summer-exodus. An occasional excursion is undertaken by both men and women in search of supplies, but the old folk are left on guard.
The building of this village is quite a work of art, and is begun as soon as the snow lies deep enough. Before this happens, the tents have been getting very cold to live in, despite the stitching on of several layers of dried heather to break the force of the wind and keep all snug inside. At last a day comes when by common consent the hunters all remain in camp, and join forces with the old men and the boys to build the winter dwellings.
Each man plans and builds his own house according to the size of his family; but only in his turn, and assisted by the rest of the community, to whom he has already given, or is prepared to give, his services. [[76]]The first houses to be erected are those of the Angakooeet, the Medicine Men; the chief hunters are the next to be considered, and everyone else comes in the order of his estimation in the tribe.
The main considerations the Eskimo has to bear in mind in building his snow house are that it will have to be kept in repair, and that it must be adequately lighted and warmed. This means labour and oil, so for his own sake the dwelling is planned on as small a scale as possible. It varies in nothing but in this point of size from all the rest of the village.
An Eskimo Snowhouse.
Ground plan and elevation of a snowhouse large enough for one family. (Central Eskimos.) These very complete houses are built in the winter encampments and last through the winter, those built in temporary camps are less elaborate. The one shown in the sketch would occupy half to the whole of one day to build.