166 OUR ARCTIC PROVINCE. 



to hut they tie cotton handkerchiefs over their heads. When hasty 

 little errands out of doors, or sudden gossiping trips are under- 

 taken, a shawl is thrown over the woman's head and held there, 

 with the gathered ends together, under her chin by one hand. The 

 shawls are of bright colors, and supply the place of woollen gar- 

 ments, though ready-made cloaks and dolmans are not uncommon 

 at those points where the sea-otter-hunting harvest is the best : 

 her skirts, overskirts, waists, and stockings are all of cotton. 



As these people have really but one idea and no variation of oc- 

 cupation, they all live alike, in the same general manner. The 

 difference between the families is only that of relative cleanliness 

 and thrift. The most important and serious business of their 

 shore-life is that embodied in the construction and repair of their 

 huts, or barrabkies. If it is well built it makes a warm, dry shel- 

 ter, and answers every requirement of a comfortable domicile. An 

 excavation is made in the earth on the spot selected in the village 

 site, ten or twelve feet square, and three or four feet deep. A wooden 

 frame and lining is then put into this sub-cellar, and the excavated 

 earth is then thrown back against and over it, with an outer wall of 

 carefully-cut sod and boggy peat, being laid up two and three feet 

 thick, sloping down to which is a well-thatched roof of grass and 

 sedge, that abounds everywhere on the sandy margins of the sea- 

 shore. Some of these huts are made very much larger than this 

 pattern just denned, having regularly spread wings, like a Maltese 

 cross, on the floor. The entrance to the barrabkie is usually 

 through a low doorway that is made to a small annex or storm 

 hallway, also built of sod and peat. This shields another little 

 door, which opens into the living-room that the architect steps 

 down into as he enters. A single window is put at the opposite 

 end of the room from the door, in which a small glazed sash is 

 usually employed. The floor is either covered with boards which 

 the native has purchased from the trader, or else it is the hard- 

 trodden earth itself, upon which the women strew grass and spread 

 mats of the same texture. 



A diminutive cast-iron stove is now very generally used by the 

 Aleutes. It commonly stands right in the centre of the room, and 

 upon it the cooking can be done, instead of being driven to the hall- 

 way fireplace, or " povarnik," of the olden time, when the smoke then 

 stifled them from the burning of that fat of seals, fish and birds, 

 which was used very largely for fuel. Therefore, they were obliged 



