shield. Sometimes the wooden door of the snow hut acts in this manner. There is no platform in the tent, nor is any separate cooking room built, but only a fire-place of stones near the entrance. The sleeping place is, however, often marked off from the floor by a pole.
All the tents of the Caribou Eskimos are nowadays of the conical type here described (fig. 16–17), with the exception of a few conical Image missingFig. 17.Conical deerskin tent. Pâdlimiut, Eskimo Point. or A-shaped canvas tents. At the coast, however, tents have previously been used like those of the Aivilingmiut. A middle-aged man at Eskimo Point told me that as a boy he had seen such tents there. The frame of one of these tents consists for the most part of an upright pole with a crossbar and a stout thong forming the ridge. It appears from Hearne's statements, however, that conical tents were also used at Hudson Bay in the eighteenth century; for after having described the tents of the Copper Eskimos as "circular" he adds "the ſame as thoſe of the Eſquimaux in Hudſon's Bay".[1]
Heating and lighting. All Caribou Eskimos use matches nowadays; but it is still common to strike fire with pyrites and steel, for instance a piece of an old file. Formerly they have without doubt used another piece of pyrites instead of steel. From the Pâdlimiut at Eqalulingnaoq south of Hikoligjuaq there is in our collection a piece of pyrites [i·nᴀ·q], intended for fire-making (P 28: 138). Formerly a fire-drill [iko·tit] was also used. A fire-drill worked by a cord is mentioned from Bibby Island within the Caribou Eskimo territory in the eighteenth century.[2] The hearth of a fire-drill [niutit] was found on the
