INNUIT LIFE AND LAND. 



379 



rank grasses, littered with all sorts of utensils, weapons, sleds, and 

 other Eskimo furniture. A small spiral coil of smoke rises from a 

 hole in its apex, a dog or two are crouching upon it, and children 

 climb up and roll down its sides, scattering bones and fragments of 

 fish and meat as they eat in the irregular fashion of these people. 

 A rude pole scaffolding stands close by, upon which, high above the 

 reach of dogs, is a wooden cache, containing all winter stores of dried 

 provision, " ukali, " and the like. This hut is usually right down upon 

 the sea-beach, just above high tide, or high-water mark, on the river 

 banks, for these savages draw their sustenance largely, even wholly 

 in many instances, from the piscine life of those northern streams. 



An Innuit Home on the Kuskokvim. 



All these tribes have summer dwellings distinct from those used 

 during the winter. For the winter houses a square excavation of 

 about ten feet or more is made, in the comers of which posts of 

 drift-wood or whale-ribs from eight to ten feet in height are set up ; 

 the walls are formed by laying posts of drift-wood one above the 

 other against the corner-posts ; outside of this another wall is built, 

 sometimes of stone, sometimes of logs, the intervals being filled 

 with earth or rubble ; the whole of the structure, including the 

 roof, is covered with sods, leaving a small opening on top, that 

 can be closed by a frame over which a thin, transparent seal-skin is 

 tightly drawn. The entrance to one of these houses consists of a 

 narrow, low, underground passage from ten to twelve feet in length, 

 through which an entrance can only be accomplished on hands and 



