THE BUILDING OF THE VILLAGE
The Eskimo are a wandering folk, thus their dwellings must of necessity
be capable of quick erection, demolition and easy transport. The tribe
lives in tents in the summer, moving from one camp to another as the
hunters decide; but winter quarters are more permanent, and the snow
built house—the igloo—takes the place of the sealskin tupik on a more
lasting foundation. The Eskimo tent is a wholly different affair from
the Indian wigwam or lodge. It consists of a penthouse shaped framework
of poles, semi-circular at the back, with overlapping strips or
curtains of dressed skin for the entrance in front. The whole thing
carries a covering of skins, firmly and beautifully stitched together.
The back part of the tent, used as the family sleeping place, is
covered with skins of the large ground seal—ogjuk—or of the ordinary
grey seal, with the hair left on in order to ensure some darkness
during the long, unbroken day of the arctic summer. The heavy hair also
serves to throw off the rain in wet weather. But the front portion of
the dwelling has a roofing of the inner membranes of the sealskins,
pared from the entire pelt when fresh and moist. These membranes are
first stretched upon frames and dried, prior to being sewn together,
when they become almost transparent, so that there is plenty of light
in the rest of the tent. They are so beautifully and so neatly stitched
as to be practically waterproof, like the fine fishing jackets made of
dried and split seal gut for the kyakers. The finish of Eskimo
clothing, fur “blankets” and tent coverings, is always neat and
workmanlike and gives no ragged, tatterdemalion impression of nomad
savagery such as might be derived from some Indian’s belongings.
Towards the back of the tent, inside, a board is fixed from side to
side, and the whole space between this and the walls is filled with a
deep bed of heather, spread on top with deerskins. This is the sleeping
place of the family, in the dark half of the dwelling. Additional
deerskins serve as blankets, and lie about the bed, rolled up, during
the day. The rest of the furnishing is very simple.
Inside the entrance hang the bags of seal oil used for lighting or
cooking purposes. Then there are the cooking pots (“kettles,” as they
are called), deep, oblong boxes of soapstone without a lid. And the
lamps, also of soapstone, and in shape not unlike a crumb tray, with a
raised lip and a little shelf at the back for refuse bits of wick.
These “lamps” are fed with seal oil. The wick consists of dried moss
and gossypium. This is moulded into pellets; a row of wick balls is set
on the rim of the lamp and then kneaded down into a line upon it and
kept carefully trimmed, so that the edge of flame remains clear and
bright. All the cooking is done over a “lamp” of this description,
unless over a fire of heather and driftwood out in the open. The Eskimo
housewife uses a blubber hammer (a stone, or mallet of ivory tusk set
in a wooden handle), to beat down the seal or whale fat into oil for
her lamps. Her furs, and her cooking pots, together with her needles,
and knives and implements for dressing skins, constitute the Eskimo
woman’s domestic outfit; a training in the clever use of them is the
Eskimo girl’s education, and the dowry of the Eskimo bride. The tent
and these impedimenta are portable enough for the wanderings of the
arctic summer, and it is remarkable what an amazing host and medley of
belongings can be stowed in the family travelling boat, and unloaded
from it—a veritable Pandora’s box—at the next bit of summer beach.
The winter locale and the winter dwelling is altogether another story.
The tribe having chosen the site of a village in some sheltered bay,
near a frozen lake or stream (or, at any rate, where ice or water can
be obtained), will return to it year after year, and remain there
throughout the long dark season, until the time comes round again for
the summer-exodus. An occasional excursion is undertaken by both men
and women in search of supplies, but the old folk are left on guard.
The building of this village is quite a work of art, and is begun as
soon as the snow lies deep enough. Before this happens, the tents have
been getting very cold to live in, despite the stitching on of several
layers of dried heather to break the force of the wind and keep all
snug inside. At last a day comes when by common consent the hunters all
remain in camp, and join forces with the old men and the boys to build
the winter dwellings.
Each man plans and builds his own house according to the size of his
family; but only in his turn, and assisted by the rest of the
community, to whom he has already given, or is prepared to give, his
services. The first houses to be erected are those of the Angakooeet,
the Medicine Men; the chief hunters are the next to be considered, and
everyone else comes in the order of his estimation in the tribe.
The main considerations the Eskimo has to bear in mind in building his
snow house are that it will have to be kept in repair, and that it must
be adequately lighted and warmed. This means labour and oil, so for his
own sake the dwelling is planned on as small a scale as possible. It
varies in nothing but in this point of size from all the rest of the
village.
The hunter having chosen his site, next takes a sealing spear, a long
twelve-inch knife and a saw, and begins piercing the snow in every
direction, his object being to find a spot where it is deep, and so
closely packed and hardened by the wind that it can be cut out into
great blocks for building. Otherwise his “bricks” would be too brittle
or too friable for the purpose. Should no such patch lie near at hand,
the builder calls all hands, and together they start trampling and
packing down the snow with their feet, while the old men, the women and
boys constantly bring up fresh supplies and throw it in to be stamped
firm. Having thus prepared what he considers sufficient material for
his purpose, the good man commences to saw out huge rectangular blocks
of this solidified snow mass, each one of which taxes his utmost
strength to lift. He begins his house by building a ring of them, a
larger or smaller ring as the case may be, fitted and jointed together
with the utmost nicety by means of his knife. A second tier is added to
this ring, the builder working from the inside and the blocks being
brought up by his assistants. As soon as this is “well and truly laid,”
he trims the upper surface to a slope, and continues building, but in a
spiral now and slightly sloping inwards, until he has reached the top
of what has grown to be a dome roof. A key block is deftly fitted in to
complete and close it, and the shell of the dwelling is complete.
A semicircular opening in the side is next cut out for the doorway, and
then the builder turns his attention to the sleeping bench—the
principal feature of the Eskimo igloo. He builds a line of blocks from
side to side, facing the opening, up to the height of a man’s legs. The
space between this and the walls is filled with broken snow like
rubble, which is trampled down until brought to the necessary level, so
as to form a solid bench of snow right across the building.
Then side pieces are built out, to form solid shelves for the lamps and
family utensils and to serve generally as a larder and storage place
for oil and blubber; so that, by the time all is done there is little
of the original floor space left.
The next step is the porch or sukso, another little domed erection much
like the main igloo, built in front of the entrance and intended, first
to break the force of the wind and to keep the larger place warm, and
secondly as a store house for surplus meat and blubber, for the dogs’
harness, whips, sealing lines, and anything the latter and the wolves
might find eatable. (Eskimo dogs, be it remarked, find nothing
uneatable save sticks and stones). As an entrance or exit for the
sukso, a further passage is built, like a little tunnel; again as
protection from the arctic wind.
The finishing touch is the window. Light is a necessity, but the Eskimo
is scarcely particular about ventilation. The less he gets of that the
more successful his architecture seems to be. A square opening is cut
high up in the dome of the igloo, facing the sleeping bench. It is then
glazed after the fashion of the Arctics. The builder sets off for the
nearest sheet of fresh water ice, and with the butt end of his sealing
spear shivers out a good thick pane of it. This he places over the hole
in the roof, packing its edges round with half melted snow, and pouring
water over the packing. In two minutes, everything is frozen airtight
and solid, and a window of flawless ice lets the illumination of the
northern night into the pure and icy chamber of the newly made house.
Failing a window of ice, one is made of strips of dried seal intestine
(a thin, translucent material, not unlike oiled silk), stitched
together with fine deer sinew. The seams are parallel, and as neatly
executed as if by machine working on the smallest stitch. The fabric is
stretched over the opening and pegged down at the corners, and
congealed into its place by half melted snow. A small hole is cut in
the dome for ventilation, and a snow block provided to stop it up again
when necessary.
Finally, the interior has to be glazed. While the householder himself
has been busy more or less within the building, on the outside the old
men and the children and the women have been set the task of packing
every joint and crevice in the snow masonry with loose snow, so as to
make it absolutely wind tight. Now comes the moment when the doorways,
too, are closed and every entrance blocked. Two lamps, well trimmed and
well supplied with oil, have been carefully lit and left burning
inside, much as we in this country leave a sulphur candle in a room to
be fumigated after infectious illness, and seal up the door. As the
lamps burn slowly away, the temperature rises and all the surface of
the snow is slightly melted. As the lamps die out the temperature falls
again, and the surface freezes to glass-like smoothness. Every asperity
of the sawn blocks of snow is annealed, and the dwelling is as proof
against draught as the inside of a bottle. Water, too, is thrown on the
floor, to make it smooth as marble and as durable as cement.
The writer has dwelt thus at length upon the building of the Eskimo’s
winter quarters, since there is something almost like a fairy tale in
this fantastic yet ingenious and practical use of snow and ice. If
masters of taste have always insisted upon the principles in
architecture that design should be in keeping with site and
surroundings, and material should be indigenous to the locality, surely
the houses that these hardy children of the frozen North build for
themselves are by no means wanting in true artistry.
These snow houses do not take very long to construct. An Eskimo can
build an igloo large enough to house about six people in a few hours,
given some assistance. It would be imagined that no great degree of
comfort could be expected within a dwelling where a thaw of the roof
and walls begins as soon as the temperature rises above freezing point.
But warmth is a matter of degree in the Arctic, and shelter from the
bitterness of the wind alone is almost warmth. The stillness of the air
inside, the greatly lessened intensity of cold, and the local if foul
warmth over the lamps and cooking pots, all make for comfort as the
native understands it.
In some parts of the country the natives line the dome and walls of
their houses with cleverly stretched skins, and between them and the
snow walls the intervening space acts as a regulator against the
interior warmth, so that excessive thaw is checked, or its effects are
prevented from damping the family circle below.
Lest the foregoing account of the white and frozen village should
convey too dazzling an idea of such a settlement, it should be
remembered that the snow all round and about is trampled up, and
incredibly defiled by all the refuse of a community who have no ideas
at all about sanitation and seemly surroundings. Hence there is an
appearance of dirt and squalor wherever the Eskimo encamp, and these
little congeries of human beings contrive quite effectually to blot and
mar the pure immensity of the snow-white northern landscape.
The Igloovegak once finished, it remains to do the furnishing. This is
essentially the women’s work. Heather is lavishly spread over the
sleeping bench, and covered again with the heavy winter skins of deer.
The rolled-up fur rugs (or “blankets”) of the family are ranged round
the walls. Two of the soapstone lamps are placed on stands at each end
of the sleeping bench, and a rough framework of wood and deer thongs
arranged above them by way of a rack for drying clothes. Stone cooking
pots may be suspended over the lamps when required, and a store of
blubber and meat is kept handy on the snow benches behind the lamps.
The rest of the family belongings are stowed away in the porch, and the
house is ready for occupation.
There is another description of snow dwelling used by the Eskimo called
a Sinniktâkvik, an acquired sleeping place. This is merely a temporary
affair, a hastily built igloo sufficient to house a travelling party
for the space of a “sleep,” having no porch or window, and only
intended to be abandoned next day.
It is interesting to note that the remains of the dwellings of the
Tooneet can be distinguished by the fact of their circular floors
having been laid down with rough stones, unlike the modern igloo, which
leaves little or nothing to mark its site by the time it has all melted
away in summer. The sleeping bench in the Tooneet house was narrower
than the present day Eskimo’s, showing that the earlier people were of
shorter stature.
The family continue to inhabit the winter igloo until the spring thaw
comes, and the roof falls in. Then, for a week or two, skins are
stretched over the hole to keep the storms from beating in; but this is
only a temporary measure. By the time the milder weather really sets
in, and the trickle of water can be heard everywhere, and the
tunnelling, too, of the lemming under the sleeping bench, the tupik has
to be in readiness. It has been stored away under a heap of stones
during the winter, but with the advent of the ducks it is brought forth
and erected once more.
These Eskimo settlements are not built according to plan. Each man
chooses a site for his own igloo, generally in the shelter of some
rock, or where there is a good supply of hard packed snow. The
dwellings are not very scattered, however, but grouped fairly closely
together, for the double purpose of sociability and common defence
against attack by dogs, wolves, or bears. The true Eskimo village
boasts of no common room or general meeting house such as may be in use
among some of the tribes in Alaska and elsewhere, where few native
customs survive unchanged. Nor is the log or sod hut ever seen in the
regions where Eskimo life is still lived as it used to be before
Europeans set foot in the polar wilds.
It is noteworthy that, when an Eskimo tribe moves to another locality,
the old igloos are never destroyed. In the barrens, the law of
hospitality is universally observed, and such of these buildings as may
survive the springtime thaw, might serve for shelter at any time to
travellers on journey. Those that are fairly intact when the tribe
moves away are merely blocked up; but those which have become unsafe
have the roof knocked in. The writer has frequently come across these
deserted villages in the course of his journeys, and had occasion to
avail himself of the shelter thus offered. It is a weird and desolate
sight—a collection of derelict igloos—some gaping open, others closed;
but no smoke or steam escaping from their little domes. And, over all,
the pall of the frozen silence of the Arctic.