Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/164

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by Parry.[1] At one place, Ingnertoq, I saw a circular frame. In plaiting the net for the drying frame an Eskimo on Southampton Island started at the frame, the meshes gradually becoming wider: in the centre they were gathered into a star. All clothing that is to be dried is laid upon the drying frame, and it is particularly for this purpose that the lamp also burns during the night. In two skin-lined houses at Iglulik and Pingerqalik I have seen bigger drying racks, two parallel rods being placed under the roof, at right angles to the platform; a seal thong was stretched between them and on this were hung dog-traces, etc., for which there was not room on the drying rack over the lamp.

The cooking pot (uvkusik) of former times was of soapstone, oblong, with sharp corners and suspension cords and a kind of lug, a projecting ledge at the ends, as shown on Parry's figures[2] and as also occur in the Anangiarssuk find.[3] Nowadays soapstone cooking pots are very rare; the only one I saw, fig. 93, 1 bought of an Aivilik at Repulse Bay, and he bought it some years before of a Netsilik. It is oblong, 42 cm long, greatest breadth 15 and depth 11 cm; at one end the breadth at the top is 14½ and at the bottom 13½ cm, at the other end 13 and 11 cm; its thickness is 1.3 to 1,5 cm. The length seems to have been greater originally, one end-piece being a separate slab tied to the remainder of the pot, which is in one piece, by a band of iron. One side of the pot has been cracked, but is repaired with copper wire. In the corners there are suspension holes, opening into the upper edge and also into the sides or end-pieces.

Nowadays the cooking pots used are of European make. The heavy, awkward and fragile soapstone cooking pots were among the first to be displaced by European culture. If a European cooking pot cannot be afforded, they make one of sheet-iron of the same shape as the old soapstone pot. One of these, from Ponds Inlet, is almost rectangular. 39 × 18 × 14 cm; width at the ends at the top 16, at the bottom 13 cm. In the corners are suspension holes, in which are two pieces of wire.

When the meat is cooked it is lifted out of the pot with a meat fork (ungangiut), most often simply a pointed bone, sometimes more carefully made with a carved handle like that figured by Hall[4] and Boas.[5] Two meat forks from the Aivilingmiut on Southampton Island have two prongs, but this is presumably the result of European influence. One is of ivory, 27 cm long, 1,8 cm wide, curved, cut at the fore end into two points, 4 cm long; the other is 23 cm long, has a wooden handle and two bone points. 8 cm long. tied on with seal thong.

  1. ↑ 1824. p. 160.
  2. ↑ 1824, p. 160 and p. 548.
  3. ↑ Mathiassen 1927 I. fig. 39.
  4. ↑ 1879. p. 304.
  5. ↑ 1888, fig. 517 a and b.
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