1032 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



course among the Eskimo tribes. The southern Eskimo of Alaska, 

 notably at Kadiak and the Peninsula, made their lamps of very hard 

 dioritic rock. 



It is quite probable that the ancient lamps were fashioned with stone 

 tools at the quarry, in order to save weight in transport. The Kadiak 

 lamps mentioned above show plainly the marks of the stone hammer 

 used in reducing them to shape by pecking. Substitutes for the lamp 

 and cooking jjot are sometimes made by Eskimo women from slabs of 

 stone, which they cement together with a composition of seal's blood, 

 clay, and dog's hair applied warm, the vessel being held at the same 

 time over the flame of a lamp, which dries the cement to the hardness 

 of stone.' In fact, a slab of stone, a piece of fat, and some moss for a 

 wick form an extempore lamp on occasions.^ In this view the rude 

 Aleut lamps figured on plate 22 are such makeshifts. In connection 

 with this, Nansen tells of an Eskimo who, being detained overnight on a 

 journey, made a saucer serve as a lamp.^ Frequently the lamp follows 

 the outline of the orig.nal j)iece of soapstoue, where the greatest 

 possible reservoir capacity is required in the given slab. 



Necessarily the lamp and cooking vessels are sometimes broken. 

 Their repair is a good example of Eskimo ingenuity, ettected by a cement 

 of blood, clay, and hair, or a strong sewing of sinew. Several lamps and 

 pots in the United States National Museum have been repaired by this 

 method. 



Seal oil is preferred for burning in the lamp, though any animal fat 

 may be used. Capt. E. P. Hereudeen informs the author that the 

 Ootkiahviemute carry for trading, seal oil put up in pokes of the skin 

 of the animal itself, prepared for the purpose. These skins so made up 

 contain about 25 gallons of oil. The interior natives and river tribes 

 are dependent upon the coast people for oil to burn in their lamps, as 

 the small amount of fat which the reindeer yields is iusufiticient for the 

 long arctic nights. 



The lamp eats like a native; successful hunting means cheer and com- 

 fort in the hut of these sociable people during the winter. The economy 

 of oil is often forced upon the Eskimo, for starvation and darkness is a 

 frequent and near-by exigency. Schwatka says that he has known 

 cases where the Eskimo were extremely anxious to economize oil needed 

 to melt ice for drinking water, in which six or seven wells were dug 

 through thick ice, before they gave up the attempt or were successful." 

 Every particle of fat is saved on principle. 



The women s(;rape sealskins with a scoop of ivory, which is one of 

 the accompaniments of the lamp.'^ There is also nearly always pro- 



' Caleb Lyons, Private Journal, p. 320. 



-C. F. H*all, Narrative of the Second Arctic Expedition, p. 75. 



^F. Nansen, The First Crossing of Greenland, II, p. 221. 



'F. Schwatka, The Implements of the Ij^loo, Science, IV, July 2;"., 1884, p. 84. 



■'' O. T. Mason, Aboriginal Skin Dressing, Report U. S. Nat. Mas., 1889, plate Lxxxi. 



