\/ 



248 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [eth.ann. 18 



yards apart and projecting several feet above the top of the roof. 

 Lengthwise over the top of the house extend hewed sticks which hold 

 in position the upright posts and the logs that bind the upright planks. 



The use of crosspieces fastened at each end to the top of upright 

 timbers is a common method adopted by the Eskimo of Norton sound 

 and the lower Yukon for binding the framework of their structures. 

 Braces, which fit into a notch in an upright post with the other end 

 planted in the ground, are also commonly used. Sometimes the walls 

 of summer houses are built with u])right sticks all around, as can be 

 seen at Ikogmut, but more commonly the ends are formed of upright 

 pieces and the sides of timbers laid horizontally. The inner frame- 

 work is bound together by withes or wooden pins and held in place at 

 the eaves by joists, across which are thrown poles or planks, forming 

 an open attic or platform for the storage of dried fish and other arti- 

 cles of food, nets, and various implements. The roof is double-pitched 

 and covered with slabs or planks over which pieces of bark are laid. 

 Along the sides of the room, at from one to three feet above the floor, are 

 r broad sleeping platforms, which accommodate from one to three fami- 

 lies. In the front, a foot or two above the ground, a semilunar piece 

 \/ is cut from each of two adjoining planks, forming an oval doorway 

 about three feet high. Small square or round windows, a few inches in 

 diameter, are sometimes cut in the walls near the sleeping platforms. 

 There is also plenty of ventilation from other directions, as very little 

 effort is made to prevent the wind from circulating freely through the 

 numerous cracks. 



Plate Lxxxi, which represents the storehouses at Ikogmut, shows 

 also one of these summer houses in the background. 



In the winter of 1880 the people at Paimut were found living in their 

 summer houses on a high bank overlooking the Yukon, and I was told 

 that their winter village on the island in the river had been swept 

 away by high water the season before. 



At Chukwhuk, just above Ikogmut, the winter houses, as is usual in 

 this district, were arranged with the sleeping platforms raised about 

 V three feet from tlie ground, leaving si>ace below for storing supplies. 

 The house at which I stopi)ed was supplied with three of these plat- 

 forms, each having its oil lamp on an upright post. Near one lamp a 

 woman was making a pair of ornamented gloves, and by another lamp 

 a woman was braiding a straw mat. 



At a village in the Big-lake district, lying in the strip of country 

 between the two nearest points of lower Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, 

 the houses were of the ordinary kind, except that they were rather 

 smaller than on the Yukon and had extraordinarily long entrance 

 passages. 



At the base of Kuslevak mountains the houses were made of smaller 

 timbers, brought a long distance from the coast in boats, or of a 

 light framework of short, crooked alder trunks covered with brush 



