34 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



filling them with water, drive the inmates out to take refuge on the 

 roof, where whole families are often huddled together for hours or 

 even days. In making long journeys to remote fishing-grounds the 

 father takes the young children in the kiak and the women follow 

 the low swampy shore on foot, often wading waist deep across 

 estuaries or through marshes. If a storm rages in the night the 

 kiak is turned on its side and the family sleep with their heads 

 alone protected under it and the remainder of their bodies stretched 

 out upon the ground. 



The private dwellings are dark so that that they cannot work in 

 them, but they construct large council-houses, or kashimas, lighted 

 by a spacious opening in the roof, and where they assemble and 

 make their weapons and canoes, and work at curious carvings in 

 ivory. Here also the young men gather to listen to the adventures 

 of their elders, and be trained in the pursuits of life. They pur- 

 posely inure themselves to hardships, such as sitting upright for 

 entire nights to fit them for long watches in their kiaks at sea, and 

 in this process of education the old men are very severe task- 

 masters. The young man is emancipated from all family connec- 

 tion as soon as he is able to build himself a kiak. He then ceases 

 to be a permanent resident of his village, and roams about as fancy 

 dictates. On the banks of the Togiak the writer had found whole 

 communities, men, women, and children, moving from place to 

 place from May until October or November, without house or 

 shelter except the upturned kiak. One of these serves a whole 

 family ; and there are times when as many as four or five hundred 

 such temporary shelters can be seen on bars and along the low 

 banks of the stream where fish and game abound. They present 

 a striking appearance when the members of a family crowd their 

 heads into the circular opening of the kiak with their feet and 

 bodies protruding and exposed to the rain. " Surely," remarked 

 the speaker, "many species of animals employ greater sagacity 

 and energy in providing shelter for themselves and offspring." 



These people drink a great deal of water without regard to 



