NELSON] DWELLINGS AND KASHIMS 



from the banks of the streams in the neighborhood. These houses were 

 very small and depended for their strength partly upon the hard, frozen 

 covering of earth. Igiogagamut, a village lying between Kuslevak 

 mountains and Cape Bomanzof, consisted of several small hovels of this 

 kind. Their interior plan was as near the usual type as the material 

 would allow, as the rooms were only 4 feet high to the small, square 

 smoke holes, which were covered with sheets of clear ice about 4 inches 

 thick instead of with the usual gut skin. From the smoke holes the walls 

 sloped to the ground, making inclosures from 12 to 15 feet in diameter. 

 These places were crowded with people. On the earthen floors were 

 layers of soft, decaying garbage of every description, from which the 

 heat arising from the crowded human bodies evolved a sickening odor. 



Xear Cape Romanof was a summer fishing village of four houses, 

 which looked like, so many mounds, about 6 feet high. We found them 

 to be built entirely above ground and of split drift logs, held up in the 

 usual manner and covered with earth. A square opening 3 feet high 

 in one wall served as a door, entering directly into the room, and the 

 square smoke hole in the roof formed the only other aperture. Sleep 

 ing platforms were rudely made on the earthen floor. 



Askinuk, south of Cape lioinanzof, is built on the top of an earthen 

 mound which rises about 15 feet above the level of the surrounding 

 country. The present village covers nearly the entire top of this mound. 

 The inhabitants say that this elevation has accumulated from the long- 

 occupancy of the spot by their people, and its present appearance 

 would seem to justify the assertion. 



The houses are clustered together in the most irregular manner, and 

 the entrances to the passageways leading to the interiors open out in 

 the most unexpected places. Sometimes one of these passages opens 

 on the top of another house built lower down on the side of the mound, 

 or, it may be, between two houses, or almost against the side of an 

 adjoining one. Near by is a very extensive graveyard, which has some 

 interesting burial places, but my visit was too brief to enable me to 

 examine it carefully. 



The Askinuk kashim is like those at the next village to the south, 

 called Kushunuk. At this place there are two kashims, the smaller one 

 being about 30 by 30 feet on the floor and 20 feet high at the smoke 

 hole. The walls are of split logs placed vertically, with their plane 

 faces inward and resting at their upper ends against the logs which 

 form the framework of the roof; the floor is of heavy hewed planks. 

 Extending around the room on the floor, and about 3i feet from the 

 walls, are small logs, serving to mark off the sleeping places of the 

 men and at the same time as head rests, the sleepers lying with their 

 heads toward the middle of the room. Three feet above and &amp;lt;&amp;gt; inches 

 nearer the walls other logs extend around the room, with planks 

 between them and the sides, affording a broad sleeping bench, sup 

 ported in the middle by upright posts and at each end inserted in the 



