86 



THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 



what similar. 1 Small rude tents only large enough to hold one or two 

 people are used as habitations for women during confinement, and for 

 sewing rooms when they are working on deerskins in the autumn. 

 Tents for the latter purpose are called &quot;su dliwln,&quot; the place for 

 working. 



HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS. 

 FOR HOLDING AND CARRYING FOOD, WATKR, ETC. 



Canteens (i mutin). None of the canteens, the use of which has been 

 described above (under &quot;Drinks&quot;), were obtained for the collection. 

 They were seen only by Lieut. Ray and Capt. Herendeen, who made 

 winter journeys with the natives. They describe them as made of seal 

 skins and of small size. I find no published mention of the use of such 

 canteens among the Eskimo elsewhere, except in Baffin Land. 2 



Wallets, etc. Food and such things are carried in roughly made bags 

 of skin or cloth, or sometimes merely wrapped up in a piece of skin or 

 eutrail, or whatever is convenient. Special bags, however, are used for 

 bringing in the small fish which are caught through the ice. These are 

 flat, about 18 inches or 2 feet square, and made of an oblong piece of 

 sealskin, part of an old kaiak cover, doubled at the bottom and sewed up 

 each side, with a thong to sling it over the shoulders. 



Buckets and tubs. Buckets and tubs of various sizes are used for 

 holding water and other fluids, blubber, flesh, entrails, etc., iii the house, 



and are made by bending a thin 

 plank of wood (spruce or fir) round 

 a nearly circular bottom and sew 

 ing the ends together. These are 

 probably all obtained from the Nu- 

 natafimiun, as it would be almost 

 impossible to procure suitable 

 wood at Point Barrow. The col 

 lection contains four specimens 

 two tubs and two buckets. 



No. 567C4 [370] (Fig. 16) will 

 serve as a type of the water bucket 

 (kiitau t?). A thin strip of spruce 

 8 inches wide is bent round a circu 

 lar bottom of the same wood 10J 

 inches in diameter. The edge of 



FlQ. 16. Wooden bucket. 



the latter is slightly rounded and 



fits into a shallow croze one-fourth inch from the lower edge of the strip. 

 The ends of the strip overlap 3 inches and are sewed together with 

 narrow strips of whalebone in two vertical seams of short stitches, one 



1 See Parry s 2nd Voyage, p. 271 and plate opposite. Compare also Chappoll, &quot;Hudson Bay,&quot; pp. 75- 

 77, figure on p. 75. 



* &quot;When out traveling, they mostly carry their water supply in a seal s stomach, prepared for the 

 purpose.&quot; Kumlien, op. cit., p. 41. Compare also Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 584. 



