106 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
there were three lamps, the third standing in the right-hand front cor- 
ner of the house. The dish is filled with oil, which is burned by means 
of a wick of moss fibers arranged along the outer edge. Large lamps 
are usually divided into three compartments, of which the middle is the 
largest, by wooden partitions called sii/potin (corresponding to the 
Greenlandic saputit, (1) a dam across a stream for catching fish, (2) a 
dam or dike in general”), along which wicks can alsobe arranged. The 
women tend the lamps with great care, trimming and arranging the 
wick with little sticks. The lamp burns with scarcely any smoke and a 
—_ 
Lae 
Fic. 47.—Stone house lamp. 
bright flame, the size of which is regulated by kindling more or less of 
the wick, and is usually kept filled by the drip from a lump of blubber 
stuck on a sharp stick (aja/ksixbwin) projecting from the wall about a 
foot above the middle of the lamp." 
In most houses there is a long slender stick (kukun, ‘a lighter”), 
which the man of the house uses to light his pipe with when sitting on 
the banquette, without the trouble of getting down, by dipping the end 
in the oil of the lamp and lighting this at the flame. The sticks used 
for trimming the wick also serve as pipe-lighters and for carrying fire 
across the room in the same way. No food, except an occasional 
1Compare the custom noticed by Parry, at Iglulik, of hanging a lone thin strip of f plubber near the 
flame of the lamp to feed it (24 Voyage, p. 502). According to Petitot (Monographie, ete., p. xviii), the 
lamps in the Mackenzie district are fed by a lump of blubber stuck on a stick, as at Point Barrow. 
2Compare Nordenskidld, Vega, vol. 2, p. 119: ‘The wooden pins she uses to trim the wick 
are used when required as a light ortoreh . . . tolight pipes, ete. In the same way other pins 
dipped in train-oil are used” (Pitlekaj), and foot-note on same page: “IT have seen such pins, also oblong 
stones, sooty at one end, which, after having been dipped in train-oil, have been used as torches. 
in old Eskimo graves in northwestern Greenland.” 
