MURDOCH. ] HOU: 75 
for the bed, which are rolled up and put under the bench when notin use, 
and a number of wooden tubs of various sizes—I counted nine tubs 
and buckets in one house in Utkiavwin—complete the furniture. 
Two families usually occupy such a house, in which case each wife has 
her own end of the room and her own lamp, near which on the floor she 
usually sits to work. Some houses contain but one family and others 
more. I knew one house in Utkiavwin whose regular occupants were 
thirteen in number, namely, a father with his wife and adopted daughter, 
two married sons each with a wife and child, his widowed sister with her 
son and his wife, and one little girl. This house was also the favorite 
stopping-place for people who came down from Nuwik to spend the 
night. The furniture is always arranged in the same way. There is 
only one rack on the right side of the house and two on the left. Of 
these the farther from the lamp is the place for the lump of snow. In this 
same corner are kept the tubs, and the large general chamber pot and 
the small male urinal are near the trap door. Dishes of cooked meat 
are also kept in this corner. This leaves the other corner of the house 
vacant for women visitors, who sit there and sew. Male visitors, as well 
as the men of the house when they have nothing to do, usually sit on 
the edge of the banquette. 
In sleeping they usually lie across the banquette with their feet to 
the wall, but sometimes, when there are few people in the house, lie 
lengthwise, and occasionally sleep on the floor under the banquette. 
Petitot says that in the Mackenzie region only married people sleep with 
their heads toward the edge of the banquette. Children and visitors 
lie with their heads the other way.! (See Fig. 9, ground plan andsection 
of house, and Figs. 10 and 11, interior, from sketches by the writer. 
For outside see Fig. 12, from a photograph by Lieut. Ray). 
At the back of the house is a high oblong scaffolding, made by set- 
ting up tall poles of driftwood, four, six, or eight in number, and fasten- 
ing on cross pieces about 8 or 10 feet from the ground, usually in two 
tiers, of which the lower supports the frames of the kaiaks and the 
upper spears ana other bulky property. Nothing except very heavy 
articles, such as sledges, boxes, and barrels, is ever left on the ground. 
A man can easily reach this scaffold from the top of the house, but it is 
high enough to be out of reach of the dogs. The cross pieces are usually 
supported on crotches made by lashing the lower jaw of a walrus to 
the pole, so that one ramus lies along the latter. Scaffolds of this sort, 
usually spoken of as “caches” or “cache frames,” are of necessity used 
among the Eskimos generally, as it is the only way in which they can 
protect their bulky property.’ 
1 Monographie, ete., p. xxili- 
2See for instance, Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 141; Franklin, Ist Exped., vol. 2, p. 194 
(Coppermine River); 2d Exped., p. 121 (Mouth of the Mackenzie, where they are made of drift logs 
stuck up so that the roots serve as crotches to hold the cross pieces); Hooper, Tents, ete., pp. 48, 228, 
and 343 (Plover Bay, Point Barrow, and Toker Point); J. Simpson, op. cit., p. 256 (Point Barrow); Nor- 
denskiéld, Vega, vol. 2, p. 92 (Pitlekaj). 
