About the floor of the kasga are placed lamps of heavy stone, hollowed out like dishes, in which wicks of moss soaked in seal oil are burned. The lamps give a yellow, flickering light and a little heat. The women take care of the lamps, keep them clean and see that they do not smoke or go out.
On the middle of the platform, at the end of the room, sits the “Ommalik” of the village. Eskimos do not have real chiefs like Indians, but in every village there is a rich man; that is a man who has more than the others of what the Eskimos use and need the most. The Ommalik is like a chief for the time being, a sort of boss, so we will call him chief for convenience sake.
In the kasga we are in now there are two shelves high up, one at each end, where the unmarried men, the bachelors, sit; and quite a scramble they have, too, in getting up so high.
On the floor at the feet of their husbands sit the married women with their babies in their parka hoods and their children playing near them, but the little ones keep very quiet and never dare to make a noise when the grown-ups are talking—which would be a good example for lots of little white children I know.
Huddled up in a corner sat a very dark little man, with long black hair that hung down into his eyes. He was as close as he could get to one of the lamps, and in his hand he held a piece of creamy ivory, upon which he was carving the story of a walrus hunt, in pictures. Near him sat a man busily mending a spear. Ommalik looked around the room. Soon his eyes rested upon Ungukuk, the little man carving the picture story. “Ungukuk,” said Ommalik, “will tell us a story.”
The little dark man stopped his work, but did not move or look up. No one seemed to have heard the chief speak. Some of the little children still slept on with their heads against their mothers’ knees.
Again Ommalik looked about him and said, “Ungukuk will tell us a story.”
Again there was silence, and the boy in the far corner went on mending his fish net. At last, after five or six minutes had passed, Ungukuk raised his head and peered into the dark faces about him. In a monotonous, sing-song voice, he began the following story:
IVANGO OR THE LOST SISTER
