76 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
Around Norton Sound, however, they use a more elaborate structure, 
consisting of a regular little house 6 feet square, raised 6 to 10 feet from 
the ground on four posts.! 
Belonging to each household, and usually near the house, are low 
scaffolds for the large boats, rows of posts for stretching lines of thong, 
and one or more small cellars or underground rooms framed with whales’ 
bones, the skull being frequently used for a roof, which serve as store- 
houses for blubber. These may be called ‘‘blubber rooms.” 
These winter houses can only be occupied when the weather is cold 
enough to keep the ground hard frozen. During the summer the pas- 
sageways are full of water, which freezes at the beginning of winter 
—_ 
Fig. 12.— House in Utkiavy wii. 
and is dug out with a pickax. The people of Utkiavwi began to come 
to us to borrow our pickax to clean out their iglus about September 24, 
1882, and all the houses were vacated before July 1, both seasons. 
This particular form of winter house, though in general like those 
built by other Eskimo, nevertheless differs in many respects from any 
described elsewhere. For instance, the Greenland house was an oblong 
flat-roofed building of turf and stones, with the passageway in the 
middle of one side instead of one end, and not underground. Still, the 
door and windows were all on one side, and the banquette or “brix” 
only on the side opposite the entrance. The windows were formerly 
made of seal entrails, and the passage, though not underground, was 
still lower than the floor of the house, so that it was necessary to step 
up at each end.? 
A detailed description of the peculiar communal house of the East 
1 Dall, Alaska, p. 13. 
2 Kgede, Greenland, p. 114; Crantz, History of Greenland, vol. 1, p. 139; Rink, Tales and Traditions, 
p.7. 
