Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition: Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442Murdoch, John
History
Ethnological results of the Point Barrow expedition: Ninth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1887-1888, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1892, pages 3-442
Murdoch, John
Eskimos -- Alaska -- Barrow, Point, Region
The tents on the sandspit at Plover Bay all face west. The same was
observed by the Krause brothers at East Cape.[N147] At Utkiavwĭñ there
are twenty-six or twenty-seven inhabited houses. The uninhabited are
mostly ruins and are chiefly at the southwest end of the village,
though the breaking away of the cliffs at the other end has exposed
the ruins of a few other old houses. Near these are also the ruins of
the buildings destroyed by the ice catastrophe described above
(p. 31). The mounds at the site of the United States signal station
are also the ruins of old iglus. We were told that “long ago,” before
they had any iron, five families who “talked like dogs” inhabited this
village. They were called Isû´tkwamiun. Similar mounds are to be seen
at Pernyû, near the present summer camp. About these we only learned
that people lived there “long ago.” We also heard of ruined houses on
the banks of Kulugrua.
[Footnote N147: Geographische Blätter, vol. 5, p. 27.]
Besides the dwellings there are in Utkiavwĭñ three and in Nuwŭk two of
the larger buildings used for dancing, and as workrooms for the men,
so often spoken of among other Eskimo.
Dr. Simpson states[N148] that they are nominally the property of some
of the more wealthy men. We did not hear of this, nor did we ever hear
the different buildings distinguished as “So-and-so’s,” as I am
inclined to think would have been the case had the custom still
prevailed. They are called kû´dyĭgi or kû´drĭgi (karrigi of Simpson),
a word which corresponds, mutatis mutandis, with the Greenlandic
kagsse, which means, first, a circle of hills round a small deep
valley, and then a circle of people who sit close together (and then,
curiously enough, a brothel). At Utkiavwĭñ they are situated about the
middle of the village, one close to the bank and the others at the
other edge of the village. They are built like the other houses, but
are broader than long, with the ridgepole in the middle, so that the
two slopes of the roof are equal, and are not covered with turf, like
the dwellings, being only partially banked up with earth.
[Footnote N148: Op. cit., p. 259.]
The one visited by Lieut. Ray on the occasion of the “tree dance” was
16 by 20 feet and 7 feet high under the ridge, and held sixty people.
In the fall and spring, when it is warm enough to sit in the kû´dyĭgi
without fire and with the window open, it is used as a general
lounging place or club room by the men. Those who have carpentering
and similar work to do bring it there and others come simply to lounge
and gossip and hear the latest news, as the hunters when they come in
generally repair to the kû´dyĭgi as soon as they have put away their
equipments.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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