80 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



people who sit close together (and then, curiously enough, a brothel). 

 At Utkiavwlii they are situated about the middle of the village, one 

 close to the bank and the others at the other edge of the village. They 

 are built like the other houses, but are broader than long, with the 

 ridgepole in the middle, so that the two slopes of the roof are equal, 

 and are not covered with turf, like the dwellings, being only partially 

 banked up with earth. 



The one visited by Lieut. Kay on the occasion of the &quot;tree dance&quot; 

 was 16 by 20 feet and 7 feet high under the ridge, and held sixty people. 

 In the fall and spring, when it is warm enough to sit in the ku dylgi 

 without fire and with the window open, it is used as a general lounging 

 place or club room by the men. Those who have carpentering and sim 

 ilar work to do bring it there and others come simply to lounge and 

 gossip and hear the latest news, as the hunters when they come in gen 

 erally repair to the ku dylgi as soon as they have put away their 

 equipments. 



They are so fond of this general resort that when nearly the whole 

 village was encamped at Imekpiiii in the spring of 188,3, to be near the 

 whaling ground, they extemporized a club house by arranging four 

 timbers large enough for seats in a hollow square near the middle of 

 the camp. The men take turns in catering for the club, each man s 

 wife furnishing and cooking the food for the assembled party when 

 her husband s turn comes. The club house, however, is not used as a 

 sleeping place for the men of the village, as it is said to be in the terri 

 tory south of Bering Strait, 1 nor as a hotel for visitors, as in the Nor 

 ton Sound region. 2 Visitors are either entertained in some dwelling or 

 build temporary snow huts for themselves. 



The ku dylgi is not used in the winter, probably on account of the 

 difficulty of warming it, except on the occasions of the dances, festivals, 

 or conjuring ceremonies. Crevices in the walls are then covered with 

 blocks of snow, a slab of transparent ice is fitted into the window, and 

 the house is lighted and heated with lamps. Buildings of this sort 

 and used for essentially the same purposes have been observed among 

 nearly all known Eskimo, except the Greenlanders, who, however, 

 still retain the tradition of such structures. 3 Even the Siberian Eski 

 mo, who have abandoned the iglu, still retained the ku dylgi until a 

 recent date at least, as Hooper saw at Ooug-wy-sac a performance in a 

 &quot;large tent, apparently erected for and devoted to public purposes 

 (possibly as a council room as well as a theater, for in place of the 



1 Totroff, Report, etc., p. 128. 



Dall, Alaska, p. 16. 



8 See Riiik, Talc* and Traditions, p. 8; also Geografisk Tidskrift, vol 8, p. 141. Speaking of build- 

 jngs of this sort, Dr. Riiik says: &quot;Men i Grenlaiul kjeudes de vel kun af Sagiiet. Faa Her Disko vil 

 man have paavist Ruint-n af rn saadan Bygning, som bcsyiiderlig nok sa-rlig sagdes at have vaerot 

 benyttettilFestlighederafernti.sk Natur.&quot; Boas, &quot;The Central Eskimo,&quot; passim; Lyon, Journal, p. 325 

 (Iglulik); Richardson, in Franklin s 2d Exp., pp. 215-216 (Atkinson Island); Pet: tot, Monographic, 

 etc., xxx; &quot;Keckim, on maison des asscmblccs;&quot; Beeehey, Voyage, p, 268 (Point Hope) ; Pall, Alaska, p. 

 16 and elsewhere; Petroff, Rep. p. 128 and elsewhere. 



