["HR SINGING HOUSE. 



GUI 



height ami twenty feet in diameter. withoi;t any lining. In the 

 center there is a snow pillar five feet high, on which the lamps 

 stand. When the inhabitants of a village assemble in this build- 

 ing for singing and dancing the married women stand in a row next 

 the wall. The unmarried women form a circle inside the former, 

 while the men sit in the innermost row. Tlu' i-liildrcn staml in two 

 groujjs, one at each side of the door. When llic lia^t hr-ins, a man 

 takes up the drum (kilaut), which will be descriln'il prcsenlly. steps 

 into the open space next the door, and begins singing and dancing. 

 Among the stone foundations of Niutang, in Kingnait (Cumberland 

 Sound), there is a qaggi biiilt on the same plan as the snow structure. 

 Probabl,y it was covered with a snow roof when in use. 



IV B 



Fig. 532. Plan of Hudson Bay qaggi or singing house. iFrom Hall U, p. t20.) 



Hall gives the plan of the Hudson Bay qaggi (Fig. 5'32), a copy of 

 which is here introduced, as well as his description of the drum (Fig. 

 5:53), which I have never seen made (Hall II, p. flO) : 



The drum is made from the skin of the deer [or sealj, which is stretched over a 

 hoop made of wood, or of bone from tlie fin of a whale, by the use of a strong, 

 braided cord of sinew passed around a groove on the outside. The hoop is about 2i 

 inches wide, 1| inches thick, and 3 feet in diameter, the whole instrument weighing 

 about 4 poilnds. The wooden drumstick, 10 inches in length and 3 inches in diame- 

 ter, is called a kentun. * * * 



The deerskin which is to be the head of the instmment is kept frozen when not 

 in use. It is then thoroughly saturated with water, drawn over the hoop, and tem- 

 porarily fastened in its place by a piece of sinew. A line of heavy, twisted sinew, 

 about 50 feet long, is now wound tightly on the groove on the outside of the 

 hoop, binding down the skin. This cord is fastened to the handle of the kilaut 

 [drum], which is made to turn by the force of several men (while its other end is 



