at Hikoligjuaq has a diameter of about 11 cm and a height of 2.4 cm. Nowadays a real saucer is sometimes used as a lamp. Even the Coast Pâdlimiut never use blubber but caribou fat. Only very few Qaernermiut and Hauneqtôrmiut have real blubber lamps of the common Eskimo halfmoon form.[1] They are, however, rather small compared with those of other Central Eskimo tribes and never have a partition for dividing the still unmelted blubber from the melted. As among the Aivilingmiut, the lamp is placed on four sticks and between them. is a drip-bowl of skin. The lamp trimmer, with which the wick is attended to, is of wood, bone or stone. From the Hauneqtôrmiut there is a lamp trimmer (P 28: 127) consisting of an irregularly shaped Image missingFig. 21.Wooden hearth for fire-drill (a) and soapstone lamps (b-c). lime concretion, 6.5 cm long, broad at the butt end and with a natural, beak-shaped projection at the fore end. Similar concretions, but usually longer, are often used by the Netsilik and Iglulik groups as lamp trimmers. They occur in the Silurian limestone and become spread by means of trading.
It is necessary to pound seal blubber before using it in the lamp in order to break down the tissue; but it is asserted by the Caribou Eskimos that they never use any special blubber pounder like other tribes, but only the snow beater or any stone. Nor have they any blubber dripper, i. e. a stick placed over the lamp with a piece of blubber which gradually drips down into the flame. The Hauneqtôrmiut collect supplies of seal blubber in spring and only use caribou fat for illumination in an emergency. However, they also cook over heather fires in winter whenever more than merely a small quantity of food is to be cooked, as for instance when the principal meal for all the men is to be prepared in the evening. It is clear that even in this group, which uses the blubber lamp to a greater extent than any other group of Caribou Eskimos, it is not the central point
- ↑ Boas (1907; 98) writes only about the lamps from the west coast of Hudson Bay, that they are of the same form as those from Cumberland Sound, but does not differentiate between Aivilik and Qaernermiut lamps. Hawkes (1916; 89) mentions a lamp from Chesterfield Inlet but without indicating the tribe.
