When Papik and Milak weren't busy, they played outside in the snow with
other children. They tumbled around with the puppies, threw snowballs
and slid down their houses.
The houses were very strong. They could last all winter. But very
often a family or a whole village would pack up and go off to find new
hunting grounds or just to visit another village. When they moved, they
built new houses, if they didn't find empty ones to use.
It took only a few hours to make a new house. This is how Papik's
family did it: His father looked for a place where the snow had drifted
deep in one big storm, so that he could get solid, even chunks of it.
(Snow on level places in Eskimo land was seldom very deep!)
With his snow knife Papik's father cut out blocks about the size and
shape of a small suitcase and placed them in a circle ten or twelve
feet across. Each block leaned inward.
[Illustration: ~The second row of blocks began to spiral upward.~]
After the first row of blocks had been laid, Papik's father shaved two
of them down, the way you see in the picture. When he laid the next
row, the blocks began to slant in a spiral, upward and inward. Soon,
the spiral almost closed in over his head, because he worked inside
while his family worked outside.
[Illustration: ~This snow house would be used for hunting or a short
visit. It had no window.~]
Finally, there was only a small hole at the very top. He cut a block
just the shape of this hole and fitted it into place. Now he was inside
a house that had no door!
But he and his wife had already decided where to put the door. So he
started to dig his way out, making a tunnel _under_ the wall. At the
same time, his wife tunneled toward him from the outside. After a while
they met. Now they made the tunnel strong by roofing it over with snow
blocks.
[Illustration: ~A regular house had a window made of seal intestines
sewed together. Or it might have a pane of thin clear ice.~]
Papik and Milak were busy all this time, too. They pushed loose snow
into the cracks between the blocks. Then they helped shovel more snow
all over the house and tunnel. When they were through, it looked just
like a snowdrift.
[Illustration: ~unpacking dry heather~]
Inside, their father cut a small hole up through the roof for
ventilation. Cold air would come into the house through the tunnel. Hot
air would leave through the hole in the roof.
Next, their father dug the middle of the floor deeper, leaving a snow
bench all around the circular room. He tramped hard on the floor to
pack it down. Then he sprinkled water on it to give it a hard finish.
Milak and her mother were ready to make the beds. They unpacked bundles
of dry heather--a plant with tough, springy stems--that they had
collected in the summer. They spread the heather on the snow benches.
This was a mattress. Over it they laid deerskins, making one big
blanket for the family.
The snow benches were seats as well as beds. Often Papik and Milak sat
there cross-legged, while their parents made tools and clothes or sang
or told long stories.
[Illustration: ~snow bench~
~door~
~storeroom for meat and fish~
~storeroom for clothing and harness~
~snow bench~
~One kind of snow house would look like this if you saw it from above
with the top off.~]
[Illustration]
Outdoors the sky was sometimes filled with weird, quickly changing
colored light, which we call the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights.
This is the way Papik's father explained the lights: Even though people
died, their spirits kept on living. Some of them were in the sky. The
changing, jumping lights were really spirits having a wonderful time
playing a kind of football game--kicking a walrus head around.