331 



woman can exercise it. Just at the moment of lighting, the 

 flame may smolie somewhat, giving off a bluish smoke and 

 jumping a little, but as the heat rises it becomes quieter and 

 burns with a yellowish colour. 



To make fire matches are now used, if they are to be 

 had ; otherwise fire is made with an apparatus which consists 

 of a piece of sulphur pyrites and a piece of quartz, or even of 

 old steel. Further, a tuft of moss is used somewhat larger 

 than a closed hand and in a small hole on the top of this a 

 small clump of the woolly seed of the polar willow is placed. 

 When fire is to be made, the moss with the seed is placed in 

 front on the platform or on the knees and the sulphur is held 

 about 3 cm over the seed, into which the sparks fall when 

 the sulphur is struck. When the seed-wool has obtained a 

 spark that catches, it is blown upon until it spreads out in 

 the wool over a space of quite half a square cm. A small 

 piece of moss is now torn off, steeped in the melted or chewed 

 blubber and used as a lighter. In this manner the Polar 

 Eskimos can produce fire in less than a minute. 



Over Kagssàluk's lamp and about 90 cm from it hung the 

 horizontal, wooden grating for drying clothes, which was 96 cm 

 long and 60 cm broad. It was suspended in strings from the 

 frame of the tent. A skin-strap, which passed up round a 

 couple of stakes in the board and could be moved along these, 

 suspended a cooking vessel consisting of an old metal pot. 

 The other house-utensils on the side-platform, which to a cer- 

 tain extent plays the part of kitchen, also spoke distinctly of 

 intercourse with Europeans and Americans. Thus, at a certain, 

 typical moment there stood on Kagssàluk's side-platform, in 

 addition to the lamp, a large metal pot, a metal basin, a coffee 

 pot, a pot with seals' intestines, an "ulo", as also a large 

 piece of narwhal meat. Until quite recently, however, the 

 water-jars used were made of skin sewed together and made 

 water-tight at the seams by the blubber-mixed substance, which 

 is scraped from the "kamikker" on cleaning them. 

 XXXIV. 22 



