Eskimo dwelling made of ice and snow. Eskimo dwelling: why the entrance to the igloo is always open and located so low

Why doesn't the igloo melt from the inside?

The igloo is a forced invention of the North American Eskimos. If the Arctic had been abundant with firewood, the Eskimos might have invented wooden houses. But stingy nature provided them with only snow, albeit in unlimited quantities. The Eskimos sighed and sighed and turned ordinary snow into an extraordinary building material

An igloo is a domed structure made of snow blocks with a diameter of 3-4 meters and a height of about 2 meters. In deep snow, the entrance is usually located in the floor, and a corridor is dug to the entrance below floor level. In case of shallow snow, the entrance is made in the wall, to which an additional corridor of snow blocks is built. Light enters the igloo directly through the snow walls, although sometimes windows are made of seal guts or ice.

The interior is usually covered with skins, and sometimes the walls are also covered with skins. Fat bowls are used to heat the home and illuminate it.

A good tent and a windproof wall are quite satisfactory for a northern trek, but there are no special winter tents on sale.
Wind-compacted snow is much lighter than ice. This means that approximately three-quarters of the volume of bricks is occupied by air, and it conducts heat poorly. Snow brick looks like a piece of foam plastic and has high thermal insulation properties. But a hut built in severe frost must be thoroughly warmed up. When a fire is lit in a hut, its inner surface quickly melts and becomes smooth. And immediately the melting stops.

This film makes the hut warmer, and it also strengthens the roof

A hut with room temperature inside should melt, but it doesn't. Melting requires excess heat in the snow layer. The snow near the inner surface of the arch has a temperature of 0 degrees, and, in contact with warm air, does not melt, because it is sufficiently cooled through the thickness of the snow walls. Let's say cooling is slower than heating. Then the inner layer of snow begins to slowly melt, but the wall, getting wet, allows the cold from outside to pass through more easily - it removes heat from the inside faster, and the melting stops. The snow dome itself resists melting when heated from the inside. Of course, in mild frost and no wind, heated to room temperature the hut will melt, but the strong frost and wind, having exhausted the skier on the way during the day, will preserve the walls of his hotly heated snow house at night

When civilization had not yet reached the Eskimo possessions, many tribes did not know a winter home other than an igloo, and were completely satisfied with it as a permanent home and overnight stay on the road. A building slab made of snow is easily cut with a knife and strengthened in the wall of the structure. Danish traveler-ethnographer Knud Rasmussen writes that an Eskimo alone builds a snow hut for his family in three quarters of an hour.

Here is one of his descriptions:

“The main housing could easily accommodate twenty people for the night. This part of the snow house turned into a high portal like a “hall”, where people cleared the snow from themselves. Adjoining the main housing was... a bright extension where two families lived. there was enough, and therefore seven or eight lamps were burning at the same time, which is why it became so warm in these walls of white snow blocks that people could walk around half naked to their fullest pleasure.

For every person, a home is not just a place of solitude and relaxation, but a real fortress that protects from bad weather and allows you to feel comfortable and confident. Any hardships and long journeys are always easier to endure when you know that there is a place in the world where you can hide and where you are expected and loved. People have always strived to make their home as strong and comfortable as possible, even in those times when it was extremely difficult to achieve this. Now the ancient traditional dwellings of this or that people seem dilapidated and unreliable, but at one time they faithfully served their owners, protecting their peace and leisure.

Dwellings of the peoples of the north

The most famous dwellings of the peoples of the north are the tent, booth, yaranga and igloo. They still remain relevant today, as they meet all the requirements of the difficult conditions of the north.

This dwelling is perfectly adapted to nomadic conditions and is used by peoples who engage in reindeer herding. These include the Komi, Nenets, Khanty, and Enets. Contrary to popular belief, the Chukchi do not live in tents, but build yarangas.

The chum is a cone-shaped tent, which consists of high poles covered in summer time burlap, and in winter - skins. The entrance to the home is also covered with burlap. The cone-shaped chum allows snow to slide over its surface and not accumulate on the structure, and, in addition, makes it more resistant to wind. In the center of the home there is a fireplace, which is used for heating and cooking. Thanks to high temperature source, precipitation seeping through the top of the cone quickly evaporates. To prevent wind and snow from falling under the lower edge of the chum, snow is raked from the outside to its base. The temperature inside the tent ranges from +13 to +20°C.

The whole family, including children, is involved in installing the chum. Skins and mats are placed on the floor of the home, and pillows, feather beds and sheepskin sleeping bags are used for sleeping.

The Yakuts lived in it winter period time. The booth is a rectangular structure made of logs with a flat roof. It was quite easy and quick to build. To do this, they took several main logs and placed them vertically, and then connected them with many smaller diameter logs. What was unusual for Russian dwellings was that the logs were placed vertically, slightly inclined. After installation, the walls were covered with clay, and the roof was covered first with bark and then with earth. This was done in order to insulate the home as much as possible. The floor inside the booth was trampled sand; even in severe frosts, its temperature did not drop below -5°C.

The walls of the booth consisted of a large number of windows, which were covered with ice before severe cold, and in the summer with calf afterbirth or mica.

To the right of the entrance to the dwelling there was a fireplace, which was a pipe coated with clay and going out through the roof. The owners of the house slept on bunks located to the right (for men) and to the left (for women) of the hearth.

This snow shelter was built by the Eskimos. They lived poorly and, unlike the Chukchi, they did not have the opportunity to build a full-fledged home.

The igloo was a structure made from ice blocks. It was dome-shaped and about 3 meters in diameter. In the case when the snow was shallow, the door and corridor were attached directly to the wall, and if the snow was deep, then the entrance was located in the floor and a small corridor led out from it.

When building an igloo prerequisite there was an entrance below floor level. This was done in order to improve the flow of oxygen and remove carbon dioxide. In addition, this location of the entrance allowed maximum heat retention.

Light entered the home through ice blocks, and heat was provided by fat bowls. An interesting point was that the walls of the igloo did not melt from the heat, but simply melted, which helped maintain a comfortable temperature inside the home. Even in the forty-degree frost, the temperature in the igloo was +20°C. The ice blocks also absorbed excess moisture, allowing the room to remain dry.

Nomad dwellings

The yurt has always been the dwelling of nomads. Now she continues to remain traditional house in Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Altai. A yurt is a round-shaped dwelling covered with skins or felt. It is based on wooden poles arranged in the form of gratings. In the upper part of the dome there is a special hole for the exit of smoke from the fireplace.

Things inside the yurt are located along the edges, and in the center there is a fireplace, stones for which are always carried with you. The floor is usually covered with skins or boards.

This home is very mobile. It can be assembled in 2 hours and disassembled just as quickly. Thanks to the felt that covers its walls, heat is retained inside, and heat or extreme cold practically does not change the indoor climate. The round shape of this structure gives it stability, which is necessary in strong steppe winds.

Dwellings of the peoples of Russia

This building is one of the oldest insulated dwellings of the peoples of Russia.

The wall and floor of the dugout consisted of a square hole dug in the ground at a depth of 1.5 meters. The roof was made of planks and covered with a thick layer of straw and earth. The walls were also reinforced with logs and covered with earth on the outside, and the floor was covered with clay.

The disadvantage of such housing was that smoke from the fireplace could only escape through the door, and the proximity of groundwater made the room very damp. However, the dugout had significantly more advantages. These include:

Safety. The dugout is not afraid of hurricanes and fires.
Constant temperature. It is preserved both in severe frosts and in hot weather.
Does not allow loud sounds and noise to pass through.
Virtually no repair required.
A dugout can be built even on uneven terrain.

The traditional Russian hut was built from logs, and the main tool was an ax. With its help, a small depression was made at the end of each log, into which the next log was secured. Thus, the walls were gradually built. The roof was usually made with a gable roof, which saved material. To keep the hut warm, forest moss was placed between the logs. When the house settled, it became dense and covered all the cracks. In those days there was no foundation and the first logs were placed on compacted ground.

The roof was covered with straw on top, as it served good remedy protection from snow and rain. The outside walls were coated with clay mixed with straw and cow dung. This was done for the purpose of insulation. The main role in maintaining heat in the hut was played by the stove, the smoke from which came out through the window, and from the beginning of the 17th century - through the chimney.

Dwellings of the European part of our continent

The most famous and historically valuable dwellings in the European part of our continent are: hut, hut, trullo, rondavel, palasso. Many of them still exist.

She is vintage traditional home Ukraine. The hut, unlike the hut, was intended for areas with a milder and warmer climate, and the peculiarities of its structure were explained by the small area of forests.

The hut was built on wooden frame, and the walls consisted of thin tree branches, which were coated with white clay outside and inside. The roof was usually made of straw or reeds. The floor was earthen or plank. To insulate the home, its walls were coated from the inside with clay mixed with reeds and straw. Despite the fact that the huts had no foundation and were poorly protected from moisture, they could last up to 100 years.

This is a stone structure - traditional home residents of the Caucasus. The very first saklas were one-room ones with an earthen floor and had no windows. The roof was flat and there was a hole in it for the smoke to escape. In mountainous areas, sakli adjoin each other in the form of terraces. At the same time, the roof of one home is the floor of another. This construction was not only due to convenience, but also served as additional protection from enemies.

This type of dwelling is common in the southern and central regions of the Italian region of Puglia. Trullo is distinguished by the fact that it was created using dry masonry technology, that is, stones were laid on top of each other without the use of cement or clay. This was done so that by removing one stone, the entire house could be destroyed. The fact is that in this area of Italy it was prohibited to build houses, so if an official came to check, the trullo was quickly destroyed.

The walls of the house were made very thick so that they protected from extreme heat and saved from the cold. Trullos were most often one-room and had two windows. The roof had a cone shape. Sometimes, boards were placed on the beams located at the base of the roof, and thus a second floor was formed.

This is a common dwelling in Spanish Galicia (northwestern Iberian Peninsula). Pallasso was built in the mountainous part of Spain, so the main building material there was a stone. The dwellings were round in shape with a cone-shaped roof. The roof frame was made of wood, and the top was covered with straw and reeds. There were no windows in the pallaso, and the exit was located on the east side.

Due to the peculiarities of its structure, the pallaso protected from cool winters and rainy summers.

Indian Dwellings

This is the home of the Indians of the north and northeast North America. Currently, wigwams are used for various rituals. This dwelling is dome-shaped and consists of flexible, curved trunks held together by elm bark and covered with mats, corn leaves, bark or hides. At the top of the wigwam there is a hole for the smoke to escape. The entrance to the home is usually covered with a curtain. Inside there was a fireplace and places for sleeping and resting; food was prepared outside the wigwam.

Among the Indians, this dwelling was associated with the Great Spirit and personified the world, and the person who came out of it into the light left behind everything unclean. The chimney was believed to help establish a connection with the heavens and provide an entrance to spiritual power.

The Great Plains Indians lived in teepees. The dwelling has the shape of a cone and reaches a height of 8 meters. Its frame was made of poles made of pine or juniper. They were covered with bison or deer skin on top and reinforced with pegs at the bottom. Inside the dwelling, a special belt went down from the junction of the poles, which was attached to the ground with a peg and protected the tipi from destruction in strong winds. In the center of the dwelling there was a fireplace, and along the edges there were places for rest and utensils.

The tipi combined all the qualities that were necessary for the Indians of the Great Plains. This dwelling was quickly disassembled and assembled, easily transported, and protected from rain and wind.

Ancient dwellings of other nations

This is the traditional home of the peoples of southern Africa. It has a round base and a cone-shaped roof; the walls consist of stones held together with sand and manure. The inside is coated with clay. Such walls perfectly protect their owners from extreme heat and bad weather. The base of the roof is made up of round beams or poles made of branches. It is covered with reeds on top.

Minka

The traditional dwelling in Japan is the minka. The main material and frame of the house is made of wood and filled with woven branches, reeds, bamboo, grass, and coated with clay. Inside the main part Japanese house- this is one large room, divided into zones by movable partitions or screens. IN Japanese house almost no furniture.

The traditional home of different peoples is the heritage of their ancestors, which shares experiences, preserves history and reminds people of their roots. There is much in them worthy of admiration and reverence. Knowing their characteristics and fate, one can understand how difficult it was for a person to build a durable home and protect it from bad weather, and how invariably age-old wisdom and natural intuition helped him in this.

Eskimos are the people who have long inhabited the territory of Chukotka in Russian Federation, Alaska in the United States of America, Nunavut in Canada and Greenland. The total number of Eskimos is about 170 thousand people. The largest number of them live in the Russian Federation - about 65 thousand people. In Greenland there are about 45 thousand people, in the United States of America - 35 thousand people. and in Canada - 26 thousand people.

Origin of the people

Literally, “Eskimo” means a person who eats meat. But in different countries they are called differently. In Russia these are Yugyts, that is, real people, in Canada - Inuits, and in Greenland - Tladlits.

When wondering where the Eskimo lives, you must first understand who these people are. interesting people. The origins of the Eskimos are still considered a controversial issue today. There is an opinion that they belong to the oldest population in the Bering region. Their ancestral home may have been the northeast of Asia, and from there the settlers settled to the northwest of America through

Asian Eskimos today

The Eskimos of North America live in the harsh Arctic zone. They occupy mainly the coastal part of the north of the mainland. And in Alaska, Eskimo settlements occupy not only the coastline, but also some islands. The people living on the Copper River are almost completely assimilated with the local Indians. Just like in Russia, in the United States of America there are very few settlements in which only Eskimos live. Their predominant numbers are located on the territory of Cape Barrow, on the banks of the Kobuka, Nsataka and Colville rivers, as well as along

The life and culture of the Greenlandic Eskimos and their relatives from Canada and the United States of America are similar. However, today their dugouts and utensils have mostly become a thing of the past. Since the mid-twentieth century, the construction of houses, including multi-storey ones, began to develop intensively in Greenland. Therefore, the home of the Eskimos has changed significantly. Electricity and gas burners More than fifty percent of the population began to use it. Almost all Greenlandic Eskimos now prefer European clothing.

Lifestyle

The life of this people is divided into summer and winter ways existence. For a long time, the main occupation of the Eskimos was hunting. In winter, the main prey of hunters is seals, walruses, various cetaceans, and sometimes bears. This fact explains why the territory where the Eskimo lives is almost always located on the sea coast. The skins of seals and the fat of killed animals have always served these people faithfully and helped them survive in the harsh Arctic conditions. In summer and autumn period men hunt birds, small game and even fish.

It should be noted that the Eskimos are not nomadic tribes. Despite the fact that during the warm season they are constantly on the move, they spend the winter in one place for several years.

Unusual housing

To imagine what the Eskimos live in, you need to understand their way of life and rhythm. Due to the peculiar seasonality, Eskimos also have two types of housing - tents for summer living and These dwellings are unique in their own way.

When creating summer tents, their volume to accommodate at least ten people is taken into account. A structure is created from fourteen poles and covered with skins in two layers.

During the cold season, the Eskimos came up with something different. Igloos are snow huts that are... winter option their housing. They reach about four meters in diameter and two meters in height. People are provided with lighting and heating thanks to seal oil, which is found in bowls. Thus, the room temperature rises to twenty degrees above zero. These homemade lamps are used to cook food and melt snow to produce water.

As a rule, two families live in one hut. Each of them occupies its own half. Naturally, housing gets dirty very quickly. Therefore, it is destroyed and a new one is built in another place.

Preservation of the Eskimo ethnic group

A person who has visited the lands where the Eskimo lives will not forget the hospitality and goodwill of this people. There is a special feeling of hospitality and kindness here.

Despite the beliefs of some skeptics about the disappearance of the Eskimos from the face of the earth in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, these people persistently prove the opposite. They managed to survive in the difficult conditions of the Arctic climate, create their own unique culture and prove their enormous resilience.

The unity of the people and their leaders plays a big role in this. Such examples are the Greenlandic and Canadian Eskimos. Photos, video reports, relationships with other species of the population prove that they were able not only to survive in a harsh environment, but also to achieve greater political rights, as well as gain respect in the world movement among the aborigines.

Unfortunately, on the territory of the Russian Federation, the socio-economic situation of the indigenous population looks a little worse and requires support from the state.

Eskimo camps consist of several dwellings housing three or four related families. Eskimo dwellings are divided into two types: winter and summer. One of the oldest types of winter housing, widespread in the past throughout the entire territory of Eskimo settlement, was a stone building with a floor sunk into the ground. Such a house, located on a slope, was approached from below by a long passage made of stones, partly buried in the ground; the last part of the passage is higher than the floor and covered with a wide stone slab, at the same height as the bunks in the hut. The house had the same plan as modern home(see below): sleeping bunks in the back and bunks for lamps on the sides. The walls above the ground are made of stones and whale ribs, or of whale ribs alone, the arcs of which are placed along the walls so that their ends intersect. Where there is absolutely no flowing timber, the roof frame was made of whale ribs, supported by supports. This frame was covered with seal skins, tied tightly; a thick layer of small heather bushes was placed on the skins, and another layer of skins was strengthened on top.

In the central regions of the American Arctic, these stone dwellings were replaced by snow huts - igloos, which are still being built today.

In Labrador, in the northern regions of Alaska and Greenland, igloos were also known, but they served only as temporary dwellings during travel and hunting expeditions. Igloos are built from snow slabs. They are laid in a spiral, from right to left. To start a spiral, cut two slabs diagonally in the first row to the middle of the third and begin the second row; Each next row is tilted slightly more than the bottom one, “to get a spherical shape. When a small hole remains at the top, the builder lifts the block that was given to him in advance from the inside, cuts it wedge-shaped and closes the vault with it. Having walled himself in the hut, he seals the cracks with snow; from the outside through a snowdrift they dig a tunnel leading to the hut and ending with a hatch in its floor; if the underlying layer of snow is shallow, then they lay out a corridor of snow slabs and cut an entrance hole in the wall of the igloo.

The outer entrance to the snow tunnel is about 1.5 m high, so you can walk bent over or with your head bowed, but the entrance from the tunnel to the hut itself is usually so low that you have to crawl into it on all fours, and you can only stand up to your full height finding yourself inside. The hut is usually 3-4 m in diameter and 2 m in height, so that, standing in the middle, you can reach the ceiling with your hand. Large huts are built less often. Large snow house can be up to 9 m in diameter at the floor, with a height from the floor to the center of the arch of about 3-3.5 m; such large houses are used for meetings and celebrations.

To finish the hut, a lamp containing seal oil is lit inside. When the air heats up, the snow begins to melt, but does not drip, since the water formed from the melting is absorbed by the thickness of the snow. When the inner layer of the vault and walls are sufficiently moistened, cold air is allowed into the hut and allowed to freeze; as a result, the walls of the dwelling are covered from the inside with a glassy ice film (polar explorers who borrowed snow construction equipment from the Eskimos call this glazing the hut) - this reduces thermal conductivity, increases the strength of the walls and makes life in the hut more comfortable. If there was no ice crust, then as soon as you touched the wall, the snow would fall off and stick to your clothes. Until the hut has been exposed to the cold, its strength is low. But thanks to warming up, a general precipitation of the snow occurs, the seams are soldered and the hut becomes strong, turning into a monolithic snow dome. Several people can climb on it, and it has happened that polar bears have climbed on it without causing harm to it.

During the day it is quite light in the snow hut, even in cloudy weather (you can read and write); V sunny days the lighting is so bright* that it can cause the disease so-called snow blindness. But during the polar twilight, the Eskimos sometimes insert windows made of thin lake ice into their snow huts; For windows, small holes are cut above the entrance. For lighting and heating the hut, lamps - bowls, or fat lamps - are used; their light, reflected from the countless ice crystals of the dome, becomes soft and diffused. Even if the hut doesn’t even have ice-cold windows, it can be seen half a kilometer away at night, thanks to the pink glow of the dome.

If the heat of the lamp begins to melt the vault, then they climb onto the dome from the outside and scrape off a 5-10 cm layer of snow on top with a knife to cool the hut and stop the melting. If, on the contrary, the hut cannot be heated, and frost forms on the inside of the vault, falling down in snow flakes, then the roof is thin, then snow is thrown onto the dome with shovels.

Most of the inside of the hut, opposite the entrance, is occupied by a snow bed. For it, they try to use either the surface of the snowdrift on which the hut stands, or a natural ledge of soil; if this is not the case, then they make it out of snow blocks. The bed is covered with a double layer of skins; The bottom layer is turned with the wool down, the top layer is turned with the wool up. Sometimes old skin from a kayak is placed under the skins. This three-layer insulating bedding keeps body heat out and prevents the snow bed from melting, while at the same time protecting the sleeper from the cold. Sometimes small recesses for things are cut out in the thickness of the couch on the side. These niches are plugged with small blocks of snow. They sleep, eat, work and relax on the bed.

To the right and left of the entrance, small snow bunks adjoin the large sleeping bed; there are lamps on them closer to the bed, and near the door there is meat and garbage accumulates. In the middle there is a passage about a meter and a half wide.

The hut is usually occupied by two families, one living on the right, the other on the left. Each housewife has her own bowl lamp, near which she sits on a bed, cooks, sews, etc. They cook food on the lamp, melt snow for drinking, dry clothes, etc. Usually, two more small lamps are placed for warmth: one in a passage near the entrance to the hut to warm the cold air coming through the door, another - in the far part of the sleeping bed. The lamp-bowl, or fat pot, is carved from soapstone, and its shape varies among individual groups of Eskimos.

Eskimos sleep with their heads towards the door; When they lie down, they put their clothes, except for shoes, in a bed on the edge of the bed, under the skins. In a two-family hut, each family occupies half of the bunk. Women lie along its edges, small children are laid next to it, then men lie, and in the middle are large children or guests. Each family is covered with one blanket, made from several reindeer skins. Sometimes fur sleeping bags are used. At night, the entrance to the hut is blocked by a large snow block, which stands in the passage during the day. Until the homeowners themselves move it away, it is considered indecent to visit them.

The Reindeer Eskimos did not use bowl lamps; they illuminated their snow huts with a smoking tallow candle, the wick of which was twisted from moss and dipped in melted reindeer tallow. They cooked it on fires made from bushes. For cooking, they set up a kitchen in front of the living hut with completely vertical walls so that they would not melt from the flame of the fire; It happened that the Eskimos could not get fuel for several days, then they ate only frozen meat. In order to always have water for drinking, the reindeer Eskimos built snow-covered huts on the shore of the lake, in the ice of which they always maintained an open hole, protected by a snow cap. They had nothing to dry their shoes on, so they dried them at night in their bosoms.

Fire was previously produced by carving, striking a piece of sulfur pyrite with a piece of iron; cotton grass fluff, fluffy willow rams, and dry moss sprinkled with lard were used as tinder. Making fire by rotating a wooden beam was known, but was rarely used.

If several families join together, they build a common snow dwelling different ways: or individual huts are connected by snow tunnels, so that their inhabitants can communicate with each other without going out into the air; or make two rooms with one entrance; or they build several intersecting domes, then cutting out common segments, and in this way, instead of small isolated huts, they get a complex building of three to five rooms in which several families live, a total of 20-25 or more people.

The snow huts on the east coast of Baffin Island have been especially improved. They have a window cut above the entrance, mostly semicircular in shape, covered with a membrane of carefully sewn seal intestines; Sometimes a peephole is left in the middle of the membrane so that you can look out, and a plate of freshwater ice is inserted into it (it is obtained by freezing water in a seal skin). As soon as the hut is built, it is insulated with seal skins; often this is an old tire from a summer tent; it is held in place by short ropes or straps passed through the snow arch and secured on the outside with bone sticks.

In a snow hut with an inner tire, the temperature can be raised to 20 ° C with the help of a fat pan, whereas without it - only to 2-3 ° above zero. The passage to the hut consists of two, rarely three, small vaults. On the left is a closet for storing clothes and dog harness and a pantry where supplies of meat and fat are kept. Such storerooms are sometimes built to the right and at the back of the hut.

Snow huts were undoubtedly known in the Thule era, as can be seen from a large number found snow knives that were used in the construction of igloos, but apparently served only as temporary shelter during movements. The development of snow huts is associated with the active life of seal hunters, who are often forced to set up camps on sea ice away from the coast; snow huts were also necessary for the reindeer Eskimos; they have reached a high degree of perfection. Typically, Europeans and Americans who go on long winter trips take Eskimos with them to build snow huts along the way.

In Alaska, the Eskimos lived in quadrangular half-dugouts with a wooden base. To build such a dwelling, they dug a quadrangular hole more than a meter deep, at the corners of which pillars up to 4 m high were placed. Then walls were built from boards. The roof was made of thick logs. A window was left in the middle of the roof - a square hole. The floor was made of planks. There was space left in the middle for a fireplace. The smoke hole was a window. In northern Alaska, the kitchen was located on the side of a long underground corridor that led to the dwelling. Among the Kodiak people, the entrance to the dwelling was above ground and was a square hole one meter in size. The outside of the dwelling was covered with turf and covered with earth.

The interior decoration of the Alaskan Eskimo home was simple. The main furniture was 1.5 m wide bunks raised above the floor. Eskimos usually slept across the bunks, with their feet against the wall. Several families lived in one dwelling. Each family had its own place on the bunk, separated from the other by a mat woven from grass.

Household items, fat reserves in bladders and other supplies were stored under the bunks of each family. Special storerooms have also existed for a long time. In the North, in permafrost conditions, meat reserves were usually stored in special pits; Often these holes were dug on the side of the corridor leading to the dwelling. Sometimes the storeroom was located at the entrance to the corridor. Storerooms were also built in the form of platforms on wooden piles driven into the ground to protect supplies from both wolves and their dogs. A kayak, sled, skis, etc. were also placed on the platform.

In Greenland, apparently under the influence of the Norwegians and Icelanders, quadrangular buildings with more advanced laying were erected stone walls, rising to a height of 2 m. They became less deepened into the ground. For the winter period in big house 2-11 families united. Depending on this, the sizes of significant dwellings of the Greenlandic Eskimos ranged from 4 X 8 to 6 X 18 m. Often in Greenland the entire village consisted of one house 1 . Not far from the house, each family had its own stone barn, in which supplies of meat and fish were stored. Between the houses of the village there were pyramids and pillars made of stone; they replaced wooden poles and served to support leather canoes upside down at a certain height above the ground.

In the summer, the Eskimos lived and partly still live in tents; the poles for them, when there is a shortage of forests, are often made up of several parts, and in those areas where there is no wood, the Eskimos steam the poles and harpoon shafts in hot water deer antlers and place knee on knee until you get the desired length; or they make tent frames from walrus and whale bones, tying them with straps. When pitching a tent, two pairs of converging poles are placed: one at the entrance, the second at the front edge of the bed; a horizontal longitudinal pole is tied to them, serving as a ridge; the remaining poles are leaned against the second pair obliquely in a semicircle and this frame is covered with a tightly fitted cover made of seal or deer skins. The floors of the tires at the entrance overlap one another to prevent the wind. The bottom of the tire is secured with heavy stones.

In the Bering Strait region, the Eskimos do not live in tents in the summer, but in light wooden houses.

For a long time, people have been using any material suitable for this purpose to build their homes: some use wood of various species, some clay, and some have even found a use for snow. Yes, yes, we will talk about those very snow houses of the Eskimos, called “igloos”, which are so unusual for the perception of most people.

Translated from Inuktitut, “igloo” means “winter dwelling of the Eskimos.” Such houses are dome-shaped buildings, the diameter of which reaches about 3-4 meters, and the height - 2-2.5 meters. The main material for building igloos is ice or snow blocks compacted by the wind. If the snow cover is deep, the entrance to the room is built in the floor, breaking through a small corridor to it. If the snow cover does not have the required depth, then the entrance is built in the wall, adding an additional corridor using snow blocks.

Each Eskimo camp has several buildings, where up to four related families are located. Eskimo housing is divided into two types: summer and winter. The first consists of stone buildings located on a slope, the floor of which is deepened into the ground. From below, a long passage of stones, partially buried in the ground, leads to the house. The last part of the passage, which is located above the floor, is covered with a wide slab of stone, and is at the same height as the bunks in the hut.

The snow house has a completely ordinary layout: the sleeping bunks are located in the back of the room, and there are bunks for lamps on the sides. When building walls above ground, stones or whale ribs are used, whose arcs are spaced so that their ends intersect each other (or both materials). Sometimes, when constructing the roof frame, whale ribs are used, adding supports to the structure. Seal skins are tightly tied to the finished frame (which allows for high-quality insulation of the house from ice), on which small heather bushes and another additional layer of skins are then laid in a thick layer.

Scheme of construction and arrangement of an igloo house

When constructing igloos, snow or ice slabs are used. The blocks are laid in a spiral, from right to left. To do this, two blocks in the first row are cut diagonally to the middle of the third, after which the construction of the second row can begin. During work, each row is slightly tilted so that a neat row is obtained. The small hole that remains at the top is closed from the inside using a wedge-shaped block. Then the builder, located inside the hut, seals all the cracks with snow.

The entrance tunnel digs through a snowdrift from the outside, ending in a hatch in the floor of the building. If the layer of snow is shallow, then an entrance hole is cut in the wall of the igloo, and a corridor of snow blocks is laid out next to it.

In this video you can watch the process of building a snow igloo house

The external entrance to the tunnel is about 1.5 meters high, which is why you can only walk through it with your head bowed. The entrance to the tunnel is even smaller - you can only find yourself in it if you crawl on all fours. But in the hut itself, the ceilings are quite suitable for freely moving around the room - their height reaches about 2 meters. A large Eskimo snow house can reach a diameter of 9 meters, and its ceiling height reaches 3-3.5 meters. Typically, such large structures are built much less frequently and are used mainly for major holidays.

Secrets of building a reliable igloo

When working with blocks that are located next to each other, you should avoid touching their corners, otherwise the structure will become unstable. For convenience, it is recommended to leave a triangular hole at the bottom of the junction of adjacent blocks small sizes(it can be easily sealed with snow in the future).
It is highly recommended not to move a block installed on a wall in one direction or another, as this may cause it to wear out and lose its original shape. You can simply place a block, trim off the strongly protruding parts on one side and below, and then carefully move it as close as possible to the adjacent block. Then, using a saw, it is made final finishing. It is recommended to lay the slabs with the “crust” side inside the structure, as it is more durable.
To make the work process easier, the upper hole in the dome can be carefully covered with one of the plates. Large cracks that are located between the blocks are sealed with pieces of crust, and small ones are treated with loose snow. Through holes and cracks are easiest to see in the evening, by the light of a small bowl of seal oil burning inside the igloo. Besides, warm air the joints will be slightly submerged, which will improve the quality of processing of holes and cracks.
Before lighting a fire inside the igloo, you need to make a hole with a diameter of approximately 10-15 cm on the leeward side in the upper part of the dome and attach a smoke extraction pipe made of strong crust to it.

Interior of an igloo

The interior of the igloo is usually covered with animal skins. Traditional fat bowls act as sources of light and additional heat. When arranging a bed, the Eskimos use two layers of reindeer skins, one of which is laid with the flesh up, and the other with the flesh down. In some cases, in addition to deer skins, old skin from a kayak is used, which allows you to get a very soft and comfortable sleeping place.

During the daytime, the Eskimo hut is so bright that you can easily read or write in it without the need for additional lighting. Moreover, in sunny weather, ice walls can cause such bright light that it causes so-called snow blindness. When the polar twilight begins, the Eskimos can insert windows from thin lake ice into the walls of the hut, cutting small holes for them above the entrance. Zhirniks, used for heating and lighting the living space, provide soft and diffused light, which is enhanced by reflection on the ice dome.