80 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



pendulous breasts. But this embarrassed them not a bit 

 before us. Some were pretty and affable; others shy; a 

 few older ones averse from a close inspection. 



The characteristic sleeping place in each igloo (and 

 it was the summer residences that we saw in use), was 

 placed at the side of the hut opposite the door, which in 

 every house faced the west. A mattress of dry grass was 

 laid on the trodden earth between logs six inches in 

 diameter, placed in a square. On this a large skin was 

 spread, flesh up, and laced over the logs, which thus 

 became pillows. About five feet above the floor a frame 

 of light rods slung to the roof poles supported a canopy 

 of red tanned reindeer skins with the fur inside, tightly 

 sewn together, hanging down to the ground outside and 

 enclosing the logs. All members of the family slept side 

 by side with their heads toward the doorway. 



The hut was roughly circular in shape, twenty to 

 thirty feet across, with dome-like roof rising from a 

 vertical wall about five feet high. Posts, four inches in 

 diameter, were driven into the ground to form the latter 

 and connected at the top by lighter stringers. A central 

 pole rose about twelve feet, surmounted by a pair of 

 parallel heads several feet long. About three dozen 

 rods, wrist thickness, were lashed to the wall top and 

 spirally laid together on top of the central pole. The 

 middles were then pushed up by cross pieces braced on 

 slanting struts which were bedded on whales' bones, all 

 near the center of the igloo. This gave the roof its 

 dome. Rawhide skins were then laid over the whole, 

 umbrella-like framework, their edges weighted down 

 against storms with walrus-hide rope, to which large 

 stones or whale vertebrae were fastened at their lower 

 ends, so that the ballast hung close to the ground. 



