Alaska Native Collections – Sharing Knowledge

2003

Mary Bourdukofsky: An oil lamp.

Maria Turnpaugh: I’ve seen them like this small one but really very deep. But most of them are round.

Mary Bourdukofsky: They use it for light.

Aron Crowell: Do you know the name for this in Unangam Tunuu [Unangan language]?

Maria Turnpaugh: Lámpa.

(Lamp.)

Mary Bourdukofsky: Châthumlampâ [oil lamp]. Lámpa is a Russian word. And Aleut and Russian are mixed, yes.

[From discussion with Mary N. Bourdukofsky, Vlass Shabolin, Maria Turnpaugh and Daria Dirks (Tanadgusix Foundation) at the National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian, 4/07/2003-4/11/2003. Also participating: Aron Crowell and Bill Fitzhugh (NMNH) and Suzi Jones (AMHA).]

There were few fireplaces in the large communal houses of classical Unangax^ society, which held up to 150 residents. Instead, stone lamps filled with sea mammal oil provided heat and light, enough even for sewing on winter nights. The lamps were elevated on stands, and the wicks were made of grass or moss.(1) Men manufactured the lamps but women owned and tended them, adjusting the wicks for a clean flame.(2) The oil of killer and sperm whales was said to burn well, but baleen whale and seal oil were smoky; when they were used, mothers had to wipe soot from the babies’ faces in the morning.(3)

When a woman was cold, she stood or squatted over a small stone lamp so that its heat rose up beneath her parka and warmed her body. Men did the same and carried small lamps for this purpose with them when hunting and traveling.(4)

Fire made by striking two stones together, one of which was covered with sulfur. Dry grass, feathers, and powdered sulfur were used for tinder.

(5)

1. Beaglehole 1967:462, 1144; Coxe 1966:150; Hrdlicka 1945:55; Jochelson 1925:73-74

2. Laughlin 1980:52

3. Laughlin 1980:52

4. Beaglehole 1967:462, 1145; Jochelson 1925:73, 1933:11; Merck 1980:81

5. Beaglehole 1967:462,1339; Jochelson 1933:10; Krenitsyn and Levashev 1988:249; Merck 1980:77