An imaginative person might liken this lamp to an ever-burning sacred flame upon the stone altar of the Eskimo home.

It serves also as a stove for heating and cooking, and makes the igloo so warm that the inhabitants wear little clothing when indoors.

They sleep with their heads toward the lamp, so the woman may reach out and tend it.
On the other side of the house food is generally stored.

When two families occupy one igloo, there may be a second lamp on the other side; and in that case the food must be stored under the bed.

The temperature of these houses varies from eighty or ninety degrees Fahrenheit, on the bed platform and near the roof, to something below freezing point at the floor level.