76 



THE POINT HARROW ESKIMO. 



Around Norton Sound, however, they use a more elaborate structure, 

 consisting of a regular little house C feet square, raised 6 to 10 feet from 

 the ground on four posts. 1 



Belonging to each household, and usually near the house, are low 

 scaffolds for the large boats, rows of posts for stretching lines of thong, 

 and one or more small cellars or underground rooms framed with whales 

 bones, the skull being frequently used for a roof, which serve as store 

 houses for blubber. These may be called &quot;blubber rooms. 



These winter houses can only be occupied when the weather is cold 

 enough to keep the ground hard frozen. During the summer the pas 

 sageways are full of water, which freezes at the beginning of winter 



FIG. 12. House iii Utkiavwin. 



and is dug out with a pickax. The people of Utkiavwin began to come 

 to us to borrow our pickax to clean out their iglus about September 24, 

 1882, and all the houses were vacated before July 1, both seasons. 



This particular form of winter house, though in general like those 

 built by other Eskimo, nevertheless differs in many respects from any 

 described elsewhere. For instance, the Greenland house was an oblong 

 flat-roofed building of turf and stones, with the passageway in the 

 middle of one side instead of one end, and not underground. Still, the 

 door and windows were all on one side, and the banquette or &quot;brix&quot; 

 only on the side opposite the entrance. The windows were formerly 

 made of seal entrails, and the passage, though not underground, was 

 still lower than the floor of the house, so that it was necessary to step 

 up at each end. 2 



A detailed description of the peculiar communal house of the East 



1 Van, Alaska, ]&amp;gt;. 13. 



Efiede, Greenland, p. 114; Crautz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 139; Iliuk, Tales and Traditions, 

 p. 7. 



