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oomiak
[< Esk. umiaq]
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
n.
a skin boat, 30-40 feet long, 4-5 feet wide, and 3 feet deep, having a flat bottom and narrowing at bow and stern, used for carrying freight and passengers and traditionally rowed by Eskimo women.
Quotations
1578
[They haue one sort of greater boates where in they can carrie aboue twentie persons, and haue a Mast with a Sayle thereon, which Sayle is made of thinne Skinnes of bladders, sowed togither with the sinewes of fishes.]
<i>c</i>1743
Several Oomiaks or Women's boats filled with women and children were also alongside. . . .
1824
The mistress of the oomiak lent him a small whalebone scoop to bale his boat out.
1908
There were thirty-six of them, all women and children, piled into one of their "oomiacks," or skin boats.
1963
Their umiaks were made of walrus or bearded seal skins and they also had sealskin kayaks.
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