258  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
nificance  of  these  resemblances  as  the  question  would  not  be  entirely 
germane  to  the  present  inquiry  since  the  ceremonial  house  was  proba- 
bly not  an  original  feature  of  Eskimo  culture.  At  a  later  time,  how- 
ever, I  hope  to  be  able  to  discuss  the  wider  aspects  of  this  problem, 
in  connection  with  a  more  detailed  study  of  Alaskan  houses  in  relation 
to  those  of  other  American  and  Asiatic  tribes. 
Although  there  are  minor  variations  from  village  to  village,  the 
houses  in  southwest  Alaska  are  fundamentally  of  one  general  type; 
it  will  be  sufificient  for  our  present  purpose  to  describe  briefly  a  house 
on  Nunivak  Island  which  may  be  regarded  as  a  typical  unmodified 
example  of  the  Eskimo  house  of  this  region. 
This  house  (see  text  fig.  25)  is  entered  through  a  sloping  rectangu- 
lar opening  into  a  very  small  anteroom,  the  sides  of  which  are  formed 
of  two  upright  whale  skulls  spanned  by  short  timbers.  This  leads 
directly  into  an  inner  connecting  room,  the  floor  of  which  is  16  inches 
lower.  This  room  is  6  feet  wide  and  10  feet  long,  and  the  roof  slopes 
from  a  height  of  about  5  feet  at  the  outer  end  to  less  than  3  feet 
at  the  rear.  The  roof  is  supported  by  a  single  sloping  timber  which 
rests  at  the  outer  end  on  a  cross  piece  supported  by  two  small  up- 
rights and  at  the  inner  end  on  a  lower  cross  beam.  Against  this  center 
beam  small  timbers  are  leaned  tentlike  with  their  lower  ends  behind 
logs  laid  at  the  ground  level.  The  entrance  room  is  connected  with 
the  inner  living  room  by  a  sunken  passage  two  and  one-half  feet  lower 
than  the  floor  of  the  entrance.  This  passage  is  6  feet  long  and  about 
40  inches  wide  and,  where  it  is  spanned  by  the  lower  wall  beams,  is 
less  than  3  feet  deep,  making  it  necessary  to  enter  on  hands  and  knees. 
The  sunken  passage  extends  about  two  and  one-half  feet  into  the 
inner  room;  the  latter  is  about  10  feet  square  and  is  sunk  into  the 
ground  to  a  depth  of  about  2^  feet.  Along  three  sides  of  the  room 
is  a  bench  or  platform  between  3  and  4  feet  wide  and  i  foot  above 
the  floor.  It  was  made  by  leaving  a  bank  of  earth  when  the  floor  was 
excavated  an  additional  foot.  On  the  earthern  floor  against  the  bench 
opposite  the  entrance  is  a  fireplace  about  2  feet  square  enclosed  by 
thin  stone  slabs.  Along  the  outer  edges  of  the  bench  are  placed  logs 
to  hold  in  place  the  bedding  and  other  household  equipment.  On  the 
two  sides  parallel  to  the  entrance  the  bench  is  used  as  a  sleeping  place ; 
at  the  rear  it  is  used  for  storage. 
The  walls  are  built  of  small  driftwood  logs  leaning  inward  at  about 
a  45°  angle,  the  lower  ends  being  held  behind  larger  logs  that  lie 
on  the  original  ground  level  about  16  inches  above  the  bench.  The 
upper  ends  of  the  wall  pieces  rest  against  cross  beams  (the  lowermost 
members  of  the  roof)  which  are  supported  by  four  upright  logs  that 
