NELSON] DWELLINGS AND KASHIMS 249 
from the banks of the streams in the neighborhood. These houses were 
very Small and depended for their strength partly upon the hard, frozen 
covering of earth. Igiogagamut, a village lying between Kuslevak 
mountains and Cape Romanzof, consisted of several small hovels of this 
kind. Their interior plan was as near the usual type as the material 
would allow, as the rooms were only 44 feet high to the small, square 
smoke holes, which were covered with sheets of clear ice about 4 inches 
thick instead of with the usual gutskin. From the smoke holes the walls 
sloped to the ground, making inclosures from 12 to 15 feet in diameter. 
These places were crowded with people. On the earthen floors were 
layers of soft, decaying garbage of every description, from which the 
heat arising from the crowded human bodies évolyed a sickening odor, 
Near Cape Romanof was a summer fishing village of four houses, 
which looked like so many mounds, about 6 feet high. We found them 
to be built entirely above ground and of split drift logs, held up in the 
usual manner aud coyered with earth. A square opening 5 feet high 
in one wall served as a door, entering directly into the room, and the 
syuare smoke hole in the roof formed the only other aperture. Sleep- 
ing platforms were rudely made on the earthen floor. 
Askinuk, south of Cape Romanzof, is built on the top of an earthen 
mound which rises about 15 feet above the level of the surrounding 
country. The present village covers nearly the entire top of this mound. 
The inhabitants say that this elevation has accumulated from the long 
occupancy of the spot by their people, and its present appearance 
would seem to justify the assertion. 
The houses are clustered together in the most irregular manner, and 
the entrances to the passageways leading to the interiors open out in 
the most unexpected places. Sometimes one of these passages opens 
on the top of another house built lower down on the side of the mound, 
or, it may be, between two houses, or almost against the side of an 
adjoining one. Near by is a very extensive graveyard, which has some 
interesting burial places, but my visit was too brief to enable me to 
examine it carefully. 
The Askinuk kashim is like those at the next village to the south, 
called Kushunuk. At this place there are two kashims, the smaller one 
being about 30 by 30 feet on the floor and 20 feet high at the smoke 
hole. The walls are of split logs placed vertically, with their plane 
faces inward and resting at their upper ends against the logs which 
form the framework of the roof; the floor is of heavy hewed planks. 
Extending around the room on the floor, and about 34 feet from the 
walls, are small logs, serving to mark off the sleeping places of the 
men and at the same time as head rests, the sleepers lying with their 
heads toward the middle of the room. Three feet above and 6 inches 
nearer the walls other logs extend around the room, with planks 
between them and the sides, affording a broad sleeping bench, sup- 
ported in the middle by upright posts and at each end inserted in the 
