WHEN the French Communists were raising Cain in Europe they doubtless
thought their idea was practically new, but thousands of years before they
bore the red banner through the streets of Paris the American Indians were
living quiet and peaceful communal lives on this continent; when I use the
words _quiet_ and _peaceful_, I, of course, mean as regards their own
particular commune and not taking into account their attitude toward their
neighbors. The Pueblo Indians built themselves adobe communal houses, the
Nez Percés built themselves houses of sticks and dry grass one hundred and
fifty feet long sometimes, containing forty-eight families, while the
Nechecolles had houses two hundred and twenty-six feet in length! But this
is not a book of history; all we want to know is how to build shacks for
our own use; so we will borrow one from the communal home of the Iroquois.
It is not necessary for us to make this one hundred feet long, as the
Iroquois Indians did. We can make a diminutive one as a playhouse for our
children, a moderate-sized one as a camp for our Boy Scouts, or a
good-sized one for a party of full-grown campers.
But first we must gather a number of long, flexible saplings and plant
them in two rows with their butt ends in the ground, as shown in Fig. 40,
after which we may bend their upper ends so that they will overlap each
other and form equal-sized arches, when they are lashed together, with
twine if we have it, or with wire if it is handy; but if we are real
woodsmen, we will bind them with rope made of fibres of bark or the
flexible roots which we find in the forests. Then we bind horizontal poles
or rods to the arches, placing the poles about a foot or two apart
according to the material with which we are to shingle it. We make a
simple doorway with upright posts at one end and bind the horizontal posts
on as we did at the sides. Next we shingle it with bark or with strips of
tar paper and hold the shingles in place by binding poles upon the
outside, as shown in Fig. 41. A hole or holes are left in the roof over
the fireplaces for openings for the smoke to escape. In lieu of a chimney
a wind-shield of bark is fastened at its lower edge by pieces of twine to
the roof so as to shield the opening; this wind-shield should be movable
so that it may be shifted according to the wind. The Iroquois is an easily
constructed shelter, useful to man, and one which will delight the heart
of the Boy Scouts or any other set of boys.