MURDOCH.] HOUSES. 75 



for the l)ed, which are rolled up and put under the bench when not in use, 

 and a number of wooden tubs of various sizes I counted nine tubs 

 and buckets in one house in TJtkiavwIfi complete the furniture. 



Two families usually occupy such a house, in which case each wife has 

 her own end of the room and her own lam]), near which on the floor she 

 usually sits to work. Some houses contain but one family and others 

 more. I knew one house in Utkiavwin whose regular occupants were 

 thirteen in number, namely, a father with his wife and adopted daughter, 

 two married sons each with a wife and child, his widowed sister with her 

 son and his wife, and one little girl. This house was also the favorite 

 stopping-place for people who came down from Nuwiik to spend the 

 night. The furniture is always arranged in the same way. There is 

 only one rack on the right side of the house and two on the left. Of 

 these the farther from the lamp is the place for the lump of snow. In this 

 same corner are kept the tubs, and the large general chamber pot and 

 the small male urinal are near the trap door. Dishes of cooked meat 

 are also kept in this corner. This leaves the other corner of the house 

 vacant for women visitors, who sit there and sew. Male visitors, as well 

 as the men of the house when they have nothing to do, usually sit on 

 the edge of the banquette. 



In sleeping they usually lie across the banquette with their feet to 

 the wall, but sometimes, when there are few people in the house, lie 

 lengthwise, and occasionally sleep on the floor under the banquette. 

 Petitot says that in the Mackenzie region only married people sleep with 

 their heads toward the edge of the banquette. Children and visitors 

 lie with their heads the other way. 1 (See Fig. 9, ground plan andsectiou 

 of house, and Figs. 10 and 11, interior, from sketches by the writer. 

 For outside see Fig. 12, from a photograph by Lieut. Kay). 



At the back of the house is a high oblong scaffolding, made by set 

 ting up tall poles of driftwood, four, six, or eight in number, and fasten 

 ing on cross pieces about 8 or 10 feet from the ground, usually in two 

 tiers, of which the lower supports the frames of the kaiaks and the 

 upper spears ana other bulky property. Nothing except very heavy 

 articles, such as sledges, boxes, and barrels, is ever left on the ground. 

 A man can easily reach this scaffold from the top of the house, but it is 

 high enough to be out of reach of the dogs. The cross pieces are usually 

 supported on crotches made by lashing the lower jaw of a walrus to 

 the pole, so that one ramus lies along the latter. Scaffolds of this sort, 

 usually spoken of as &quot;caches&quot; or &quot;cache frames,&quot; are of necessity used 

 among the Eskimos generally, as it is the only way in which they can 

 protect their bulky property. 2 



1 Monographic, etc., p.xxiii. 



*Seo for instanee, Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 141; Franklin, 1st Expert., vol. 2, p. 194 

 (Coppermine River) ; 2rt Kxped., p. 121 (Mouth of the Mackenzie, where tliey are made of drift logs 

 stuck up so that the roots serve as crotches to hold the cross pieces) ; Hooper, Tents, ete., pp. 48, 228, 

 and 343 (Plover Hay, Point Harrow, and Toker Point) ; J. Simpson, op. cit., p. 256 (Point Barrow) ; Nor- 

 denskiold, Vega, vol. 2, p. 92 (Pitlekjy). 



