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A preliminary search of Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) was performed for categories 252 (food preparation) and 373 (fire and fuel). Files were examined for evidence of firepit construction and location and of fuel use; evidence was scant. Several available ethnographies were searched for the same information. Particularly informative were descriptions of fires in high-latitude regions. My understanding of the ethnographic record is that usually fires were controlled . That is, fires were built to fit a situation, such as fuel availability, purpose, and length of time needed. Because several of the ethnographic sources are so informative and so wellstated , and because some of the sources may not be readily available to all readers , I quote at length here. I have organized these sources by gross environmental region. For each region, I give my interpretation of the information and other comments following the excerpts from the ethnographies. ARCTIC [Copper Eskimo] The most important item of fuel among the Copper Eskimo is, of course, the blubber of the seal. Except in special emergencies this is the only article of fuel used in winter in Victoria Island or on the mainland, although the Kanhiryuarmiut on the Banks Island use also the fat of the polar bear to some extent. It makes little difference whether driftwood is abundant or scarce in any district, it is never used during the part of the year when people live in snowhouses. It would manifestly be unsuited for the heating of a snowhouse and as a matter of fact, as I know from experience, the seal oil lamp is better suited for the heating of any kind of a substantially built Eskimo house than wood is, even when burned in sheet iron stoves. But in the Appendix I Ethnographic Record of Fuel and Firepit Use 272 Appendix I spring when the snowhouse is discarded for the tent and the people move from the sea ice inland to hunt, the supplies of oil are all left behind on the coast and either wood or heather is used. Among the Noahonirmiut, for instance, we found in the latter part of May, 1910, that families living six or eight miles from the seacoast had taken with them two or three sticks of wood equivalent to as many stout cord wood sticks and these they were eking out for cooking purposes. The man of the family would take an adze and with it make fine chips or shavings which the woman would feed one by one into a tiny flame built under the bottom of the pot. In this way a very small piece of wood could bring a good-sized pot of meat to a boil. When this was done they intended, they told us[,] to find heather (Cassiope tetragona) underneath the snow and use that for fuel. Later, when the sun had cleared the snow away, it would, of course, be easy to find the heather which is the favorite fuel of the Copper Eskimo. (Stefánsson 1919:45–46) The Eskimo of my party were all westerners and used to cooking with driftwood or willows. When during the summer of 1910 we traveled around with parties of the Copper Eskimo, my companions insisted that they were not going to cook with “grass.” They seemed to look upon the very idea as degrading in some way; and would scout around in search of bushes of willow which they maintained would make a much more satisfactory fire. The result was that our local traveling companions would have their camp pitched and supper cooked before we got our fire lit and proceedings in our camp were usually suspended while we went over and joined them in their supper inviting them later on to come and share ours which was ready an hour or so later. Towards the end of the summer my westerners had finally become convinced the use of grass was not necessarily degrading , with the result that we could get our meals as quickly as the natives. (Stefánsson 1919:45–46) There is a special art about burning heather. You must make a small fire and feed in a handful at a time, keeping the blaze uniform. In most Arctic districts where I have traveled, you cannot walk half a mile without finding a patch of heather big enough to cook several meals by. You build the fire in the proper place and within ten or fifteen feet of it you can gather sufficient fuel for cooking. We...

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