inside is only about 10° higher; sometimes not so much. Next day, however, when the iglu has settled somewhat, and more snow has been thrown on the roof, the temperature is brought to about 24° or 26° (i. e. 6° or 8° of frost), and here it remains, the temperature outside having little or no effect upon that inside".[1] There is a very great drawback about these unheated snow houses, however, and that is the impossibility of drying damp skin clothing in them. In snow houses that are warmed by blubber lamps, the temperature often rises so much that the roof begins to drip. The easiest way to remedy this is to press a lump of snow against the melting spot, where it immediately freezes fast. The dripping can only be permanently remedied, however, by shovelling the snow thinner on the outside of the roof. Old snow houses are completely covered on the inside with a layer of ice and are not nearly so warm as before, while their festive whiteness has been replaced by a sooty appearance. It is then time to leave them and build new ones.
A number of Caribou Eskimos now have primus stoves and some few have "camp stoves", hurricane lamps or even ordinary petroleum lamps. It makes an odd impression to see a genuine, fin de siècle drawing-room lamp with glass oil-container, lamp-glass, etc. burning in an Eskimo tent among caribou skins, raw meat and every sign of "savagery".
Furnishings. The platform is both chair and bed in the snow house. On it the occupants live during the day. The men as a rule sit farthest back with their legs stretched straight out, whereas the women sit half kneeling with their legs tucked under them, and the children tumble about everywhere. Both day and night the women's place is by the wall, where they can tend the fire in the kitchen or the lamp if there is one, whereas the man or men, if more than one family lives in the house, sleep nearer to the middle of the house. Infant children sleep between their parents.
Over the snow of the platform or the back part of the tent a sort of mat [qilaktät] is spread to prevent the skins from becoming wet or from freezing fast; for the body heat of the sleepers would gradually melt a slight hollow in the surface of the platform. The mats are made of thin willow twigs, sometimes blended with Empetrum, Ledum, Cassiope, etc., laid regularly side by side and bound together, this being done nowadays with common string. The mats form rectangles of greater or smaller length but of about the same breadth, as this of course depends upon the length of the branches, which can never be very great. A small specimen (P 28: 257), from Eskimo Point, measures 123 by 135 cm.
- ↑ Hanbury 1904; 77.
