This plain provided an optimal settlement area for Paleo-Inuit and Thule culture Inuit at different times over the past several thousand years. When the grass grows tall in the middle of summer, it can often be difficult to spot the ruins, but we know that the youngest house ruins at Sermermiut date to the year 1850, right around the time that the last residents chose to move up to Ilulissat. Back then, people lived in small square houses built of peat and stone and heated by oil that was burned in a soapstone lamp. The oil came from the blubber of sea mammals. This oil lamp had many functions, it was used for heating the house, providing light and cooking food.
Winter houses generally covered an area of 10-12 square meters, but the thick walls of turf and stone made the insides of the dwelling much smaller. Inside the house, furniture consisted of a sleeping bench along the back wall, a small podium for the lamp and other domestic items to make life more comfortable. A family consisting of parents and children and sometimes grandparents would typically live in such a house. A rule for all houses was that there had to be at least one hunter who could procure food, skins and blubber. The woman had an equally important role in the house and was responsible for cooking food, keeping the lamp lit and sewing and mending the family’s skin clothing.
This type of house was only used in the winter. In the spring families would shift their residence to a tent, travelling to places where special game animals such as narwhale and beluga whales, larger seals, aulks and cappelin could be hunted and harvested. In the summer families would move inland, to hunt caribou and fish for trout. Late in the autumn, families would return to Sermermiut and resume their winter life.
Let's now move a little further down the boardwalk. At the next stop, I will talk about the communal house. A house form in use before the square house I just described.
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