Nama : Muhammad Chaidaru Dinil Islam

NIM : 185070100111037
Kelas : PD - B
LISTENING
Listen to a lecture in an anthropology class. Okay class, we’ve been talking about traditional
types of shelters about the styles of houses used by traditional people, and today I’d like to talk a bit
about the homes of the Inuit people “the Eskimos” the people who live in the far north, in the Arctic
regions of North America. Now, all the Inuit used to have two types of houses, summer houses and
winter houses. Their summer houses were called tupiq and they were originally made of animal
skins and later, canvas. There were various types of winter houses, though. The Inuit who lived in
northern Alaska, where there was plenty of driftwood, built their winter houses from wood they found
on the shore. The Inuit who lived in Labrador, that’s in Northeastern Canada, now, they built their
winter houses from stone and earth and supported them with whalebones. It was only in the north
central part of Canada and in one place in Greenland that the Inuit built their winter houses from
snow. And by the way, the Inuit who lived up in Greenland, in a place called Thule, they were some
of the most isolated people in the world. Until sometime in the early nineteenth century in fact, they
thought they were the only people in the world. Imagine how surprised they were the first time they
met outsiders. Anyway, when the first Canadians of European descent arrived in northern Canada
and they saw these houses made of snow, they asked what they were called. The Inuit replied
“Igloos” and so that’s what we call them now. In English, the word igloo means a dome shaped
house made of snow. However, it turns out the word igloo in Inuit just means house, any sort of
house, a house of wood, a house of snow, whatever. How did the Inuit make these snow houses?
They used knives made of bone or ivory to cut wind packed snow into blocks. They arranged these
in a circle and then kept adding smaller and smaller blocks in a rising spiral until a dome was formed.
Then they’d pack the cracks between the blocks with loose snow. A skilled igloo builder could put
up a simple igloo in a couple of hours and you know what? He could do it in a blizzard. The igloo
was the only dome shaped traditional housing that was built without internal support. It didn’t need
any interior support because, well, because it was so strong. The bitter Arctic winds caused the
outside of the igloo to freeze solid. Then, the interior was set with a seal-oil lamp. What I mean is,
they used these lamps to melt a little bit of the snow blocks and then the water refroze into ice. So
you had a layer of ice on the outside of the dome and one on the inside and like I say it was strong.
In fact, it would support the weight of a man standing on top of it. Igloos were remarkably warm
inside. I mean, given that they were made out of snow, they were surprisingly cozy. Snow is actually
a good insulator, believe it or not, and it keeps the intense cold out. Igloos were usually small enough
so that body heat warmed them up pretty quickly. The Inuit slept on platforms of packed snow
covered with furs. And the entrance tunnel to the igloo was dug out so that it was lower than the
igloo floor and cold air got trapped in the tunnel. Seal oil lamps were usually used to heat igloos, so
there had to be a hole at the top of the dome to let out stale air and smoke. If igloos were to be used
for a fairly long time, they naturally tended to be more elaborate. Sometimes circular walls of snow
were built around igloos to shield them from the wind. Sometimes these walls were even built into a
second dome around the first one and the layer of air between the two domes provided even more
insulation. These semi permanent igloos had windows and skylights made of freshwater ice or
translucent seal gut. And sometimes you’d have clusters of igloos. They were connected by tunnels.
Sometimes five or more Inuit families lived in these clusters. And sometimes the Inuit built larger
snow domes that could be used more or less as community centers. You know, the nights are long
up there in the Arctic, so they needed some entertainment. They held dances and wrestling matches
and their famous singing competitions in these larger igloos. In the early 1950’s, the Inuit began
living in permanent year round housing. They only used igloos when they went on overnight hunting
trips. Today, they don’t use these wonderful snow domes for shelter at all, not even as temporary
housing. But, sometimes they’ll build igloos for special exhibits and sometimes you’ll see little igloos
in their yards that they build as playhouses for their children.