,38 G. Holm. 



the wall, whereas the unmarried women lie at the foot end^). The 

 unmarried men and big boys, and also casual guests, sleep on the 

 window platforms. 



Furnishing and implements. — Coverlets are made of seal or 

 dog skin with an edging of bear skin along the upper border. 

 Every spring, when the inhabitants move into tents, they make new 

 coverlets, generally out of the outer frocks they have worn in the 

 winter. The coverlet is used wàth the hairy side in, and over it 

 are sewn all kinds of old garments with the hairy side out. A 

 whole family is covered with the same coverlet, and the clothes 

 they wear in the day time are used as a pillow. 



Every married woman has her lamp standing on a little plat- 

 form of stone in front of the sleeping platform and at one side of 

 the compartment where the family live, so that two neighbours 

 have their lamps standing on a common platform. The lamp is an 

 oblong flat vessel, cut out of potstone, and it rests on a lamp-stool, 

 consisting of a hollowed block of wood, which itself stands on 

 three or four legs on the platform (figs. 258, 260). In the lamp- 

 stool is collected the overflowing train-oil. As a wick is used fine 

 chopped moss, which is laid along one edge of it. Blubber is put 

 in the lamp, the latter is inclined slightly towards the side where 

 the wick is placed, and with the aid of a lamp-trimmer of iron 

 with a wooden handle, the wick is kept burning with a bright 

 flame, 1 or 2 inches high. The lamp not only serves to give light 

 and warmth, but is also used for cooking. As they have no fire- 

 places in the open air, all food is cooked over the lamp, both when 

 the people live in tents and when they live in houses. 



Before the lamps stand the water tubs, which are of excellent 

 cooper's work (figs. 276, 278 to 280). The staves are pegged to the 

 bottom and joined together with wooden nails, which pass obliquely 

 from one stave into another. Along the upper edge staves are 

 joined two and two by a bone mounting. The tubs have a cross- 

 piece, which is attached to two prolonged staves. The water is 

 obtained from a cut-out piece of frozen snow, which is placed be- 

 tween the cross-piece and the edge. The melted water is scooped 



') In "Brudstykker af en Dagbog holden i Grønland i Aarene 177Ü — 1778" Ъу 

 Hans Egede Saabye \ve find on page 112: "The platform is their bed; but tJieir 

 marriage bed is under the platform". This observation is confirmed in "Udtog 

 af Missionær P. Kraghs Dagbog' 1st part, page ;^0, in which it is stated that 

 a number of Greenlanders slept under the platform. For our ол\п part we 

 have not observed or heard of this custom; I ought, however, to mention that 

 a woman told me she often had to sleep on the stone Поог, as she could not 

 stand the heat on the platform. 



