352 W. Thalbitzer 



HOUSES AND TENTS. 



Houses. — A plan of a house is shown in fig. 31, confer the 

 description on pp. 35 — 38 (and p. 60). I measured the houses I visited 

 and noted the building materials and number of windows, roof 

 supports and beams, compartments on the platforms, lamps and boxes, 

 as also the number of the occupants, their places and names. Most 

 of these observations are noted in the Table on pp. 356 — 357 and the 

 remainder chiefly in the following remarks. The personal names, 

 however, will not be discussed, as I hope to deal with them in the 

 40th volume of the "Meddelelser om Grønland", which will treat of 

 the language and culture of the natives. 



Technical names of various parts of the house: itte house; ittiwa 

 his house (these are the regular East Greenland forms corresponding 

 to the West Greenland igdlo, illo and igdlua, iLLua); qaa^ij roof; 

 toottaq the longitudinal and highest beam of the roof; paa^"kaait, 

 paak^^aatai the cross beams of the roof (rarely, as in West Green- 

 landic, aaweq, plur. aa^^"rit)■, qi^"kkän, qi^^kkälin roof supports (also 

 called sukän); uän (or uuän) the side walls of the house, of the 

 room; uätaa his or its (the house's) side-wall; iijaamisaa the sods 

 covering the side walls; paavutaai pegs stuck into the sods of the 

 walls; aalisän skins covering the walls, tapestry; näleq floor; nätsiaat 

 the stones of the floor; itter the platform; kile the inner (back) end, 

 or foot-end, of the platform ; talin skins hanging between the places 

 of the occupants on the platform; qattät skins covering the platform 

 (as mats); ittisaain the beams of the platform; atenj, plur. aterin 

 cross-beams supporting the ittisaain; aterqerpiij low prop supporting 

 one end of ateri] (such are placed along the foot end of each roof 

 support); qaanerij the space between platform and floor; ippät the 

 side platforms; eepe the window platform; aké the space between 

 the eepe and floor; katak inner doorway, innermost end of the 

 entrance passage; eppertä^ the part of the front Avail between the 

 two windows; pattisaain two upright stones on either side of the 

 inner entrance, door-posts; qaawilisaa the stone overlier resting on 

 the door-posts; iseeia the entrance passage (rarely tortcood); qiijaar 

 air-hole in the roof; aüäi dung hill before the entrance of the 

 house. 



Accurate measurements of the houses in East Greenland were 

 first made by G. Holm in the Ammassalik district; later, measure- 

 ments of house-ruins in districts occupied in ancient times were 

 made by G. Amdrup between Ammassalik and the mouth of Scoresby 



