HOUSES OF INDIAN TRIBES NORTH OF NEW MEXICO.
The growth of the idea of house architecture in general is a subject
more comprehensive than the scope of this volume. But there is one
phase of this growth, illustrating as it does the condition of
society and of the family in savagery and in barbarism, to which
attention will be invited. It is found in the domestic architecture
of the American aborigines, considered as a whole, and as parts of
one system. As a system it stands related to the institutions, usages,
and customs presented in the previous chapters. There is not only
abundant evidence in the collective architecture of the Indian
tribes of the gradual development of this great faculty or aptitude
of the human mind among them, through three ethnical periods, but
the structures themselves, or a knowledge of them, remain for
comparison with each other. A comparison will show that they belong
to a common indigenous system of architecture. There is a common
principle running through all this architecture, from the hut of the
savage to the commodious joint-tenement house of the Village Indians
of Mexico and Central America, which will contribute to its
elucidation.
The indigenous architecture of the Village Indians has given to them,
more than aught else, their position in the estimation of mankind.
The facts of their social condition in other respects, which,
unfortunately, are obscure, have been much less instrumental in
fixing their status than existing architectural remains. The Indian
edifices in Mexico and Central America of the period of the Conquest
may well excite surprise and even admiration; from their palatial
extent, from the material used in their construction, and from the
character of their ornamentation, they are highly creditable to
their skill in architecture. But a false interpretation has, from
the first, been put upon this architecture, as I think can be shown,
and inferences with respect to the social condition and the degree
of advancement of these tribes have been constantly drawn from it
both fallacious and deceptive, when the plain truth would have been
more creditable to the aborigines. It will be my object to give an
interpretation of this architecture in harmony with the usages and
customs of the Indian tribes. The houses of the different tribes, in
ground-plan and mechanism, will be considered and compared, in order
to show wherein they represent one system.
A common principle, as before stated, runs through all this
architecture, from the "long-house" of the Iroquois to the "pueblo
houses" of New Mexico, and to the so-called "palace" at Palenqne,
and the "House of the Nuns" at Uxmal. It is the principle of
adaptation to communism in living, restricted in the first instance
to household groups, and extended finally to all the inhabitants of
a village or encampment by the law of hospitality. Hunger and
destitution were not known at one end of an Indian village while
abundance prevailed at the other. Joint-tenement houses, each
occupied by one large household, as among the Iroquois, or by
several household groups, as in Yucatan, were the natural and
inevitable result of their usages and customs. Communism in living
and the law of hospitality, it seems probable, accompanied all the
phases of Indian life in savagery and in barbarism. These and other
facts of their social condition embodied themselves in their
architecture, and will contribute to its elucidation.
The house architecture of the Northern tribes is of little importance,
in itself considered; but, as an outcome of their social condition
and for comparison with that of the Southern Village Indians, it is
highly important. An attempt will be made to show, firstly, that the
known communism in living of the former tribes entered into and
determined the character of their houses, which are communal; and,
secondly, that wherever the structures of the latter class are
obviously communal, the practice of communism in living at the
period of discovery may be inferred from the structures themselves,
although many of them are now in ruins, and the people who
constructed them have disappeared. Some evidence, however, of the
communism of the Village Indians has been presented.
COMMUNAL HOUSES OF TRIBES IN SAVAGERY.
Mr. Stephen Powers, in his recent and instructive work on the
"California Tribes," enumerates seven varieties of the lodge
constructed by these tribes, adapted to the different climates of
the State. One form was adapted to the raw and foggy climate of the
California coast, constructed of redwood poles over an excavated pit,
another to the snow-belt of the Coast Range and of the Sierras;
another to the high ranges of the Sierras; another to the warm coast
valleys; another, limited to a small area, constructed of interlaced
willow poles, the interstices being open; another to the woodless
plains of the Sacramento and the San Joaquin, dome-shaped and
covered with earth; and another to the hot and nearly rainless
region of the Kern and Tulare valleys, made of tule. Four of these
varieties are given below, the illustrations being taken from his
work. [Footnote: Powell's Geographical Survey, &c., of the Rocky
Mountain Region, Contributions to American Ethnology, vol. iii,
Powers' Tribes of California, p. 436.]
"In making a wigwam, they excavated about two feet, banked up the
earth enough to keep out the water, and threw the remainder on the
roof dome-shaped. With the Lolsel the bride often remains in the
father's house, and her husband comes to live with her, whereupon
half the purchase money is returned. Thus there will be two or three
families in one lodge. They are very clannish, especially the
mountain tribes, and family influence is all potent." [Footnote: ib.,
p. 221.]
Elsewhere he remarks upon this form of house as follows: "On the
great woodless plains of the Sacramento and San Joaquin, the savages
naturally had recourse to earth for a material. The round,
domed-shaped, earth-covered lodge is considered the characteristic
one of California; and probably two-thirds of its immense aboriginal
population lived in dwellings of this description. The doorway is
sometimes directly on top, sometimes on the ground, at one side. I
have never been able to ascertain whether the amount of rain-fall of
any given locality had any influence in determining the place of the
door." [Footnote: ib., p. 437.]
This mode of entrance reappears in the more artistic house of the
Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, where the rooms are entered by means
of a trap-door in the roof, the descent being made by a ladder. The
"immense aboriginal population" of California, claimed by Mr. Powers,
is too strong a statement.
"This wigwam is in the shape of the capital letter L, made up of
slats leaning up to a ridge-pole and heavily thatched. All along the
middle of it the different families or generations have their fires,
while they sleep next the walls, lying on the ground, underneath
rabbit-skins and other less elegant robes, and amid a filthy cluster
of baskets, dogs, and all the wretched trumpery dear to the
aboriginal heart. There are three narrow holes for dens, one at
either end and one at the elbow." This is Mr. Powers' fifth variety
of the lodge. [Footnote: Powers' Tribes of Cal., p. 284.]
"In the very highest region of Sierra, where the snow falls to such
an enormous depth that the fire would be blotted out and the whole
open side snowed up, the dwelling retains substantially the same
form and materials, but the fire is taken into the middle of it, and
one side of it (generally the east one) slopes down more nearly
horizontal than the other, and terminates in a curved way about
three feet high and twice as long." Half a dozen such houses make an
Indian village, with the addition of a "dome-shaped assembly or
dance house" in the middle space. "One or more acorn-granaries of
wicker-work stand around each lodge, much like hogsheads in shape
and size, either on the ground or mounted on posts as high as one's
head, full of acorns and capped with thatch." [Footnote: Powers'
Tribes of Cal., p. 284.]
In Southern California, where the climate is both dry and hot, the
natives constructed a wigwam entirely different from those found in
other parts of the State. "In the Yokut nation," Mr. Powers remarks,
"there appears to be more political solidarity, more capacity in the
petty tribes of being grouped into large and coherent masses than is
common in the State. This is particularly true of those living on
the plains, who display in their encampments a military precision
and regularity which are remarkable. Every village consists of a
single row of wigwams, conical or wedge-shaped, generally made of
tule, and just enough hollowed out within so that the inmates may
sleep with the head higher than the feet, all in perfect alignment,
and with a continuous awning of brushwood stretching along in front.
In one end-wigwam lives the village captain; on the other the shaman
of si-se'-ro. In the mountains there is some approach to this martial
array, but it is universal on the plains." [Footnote: Powers' Tribes
of Cal., p. 370.]
As a rule these houses were occupied by more families than one, as
is shown by the same author. In the northern part of the State
"the Tatu wigwams do not differ essentially from those of the vicinal
tribes. They are constructed of stout willow wicker-work, dome-shaped,
and thatched with grass. Sometimes they are very large and oblong,
with sleeping-room for thirty or forty persons." [Footnote: ib., p.
139.]
The Yo-kai'-a inhabit a section of the north-west part of the State.
"Their style of lodge is the same which prevails generally along
Russian River, a huge frame-work of willow poles covered with thatch,
and resembling a large flattish haystack. Though still preserving
the same style and materials, since they have adopted from the
Americans the use of boards they have learned to construct all
around the wall of the wigwam a series of little state rooms, if I
may so call them, which are snugly boarded up and furnished with
bunks inside. This enables every family in these immense patriarchal
lodges to disrobe and retire with some regard to decency, which
could not be done in the one common room of the old style wigwam."
[Footnote: ib., p. 163.]
Again: "The Se-nel, together with three other petty tribes, mere
villages, occupy that broad expanse of Russian River Valley on one
side of which now stands the American village of Senel. Among them
we find unmistakably developed that patriarchal system which appears
to prevail all along Russian River. They construct immense
dome-shaped or oblong lodges of willow poles an inch or two in
diameter, woven in square lattice-work, securely lashed and thatched.
In each one of these live several families, sometimes twenty or
thirty persons, including all who are blood relations. Each wigwam,
therefore, is a pueblo, a law unto itself; and yet these lodges are
grouped in villages, some of which formerly contained hundreds of
inhabitants." [Footnote: ib., p. 168.]
I cannot find that Mr. Powers mentions the practice of communism in
these households, but the fact seems probable. Their usages in the
matter of hospitality are much the same as in the other tribes.
Their principal food was salmon, acorn-flour bread, game, kamas, and
berries. They were, without pottery, cooked in ground ovens, and
also in water-tight baskets by means of heated stones.
A brief reference may be made to the skin lodge of the Kutchin or
Louchoux of the Yukon and Peel Rivers.
[Illustration: Fig. 5.--Kutchin Lodge.]
This simple structure, the ground plan and elevation of which were
taken from the Smithsonian Report, is thus described by Mr.
Strachan Jones: [Footnote: Report for 1866, p. 321.] "Deer-skins are
dressed with the hair on, and sewed together, forming two large rolls,
which are stretched over a frame of bent poles. The lodge is nearly
elliptical, about twelve or thirteen feet in diameter and six feet
high, very similar to a tea-cup turned over. The door is about four
feet high, and is simply a deer-skin fastened above and hanging down.
The hole to allow the smoke to escape is about four feet in diameter.
Snow is heaped up outside the edges of the lodge and pine brush
spread on the ground inside, the snow having been previously
shoveled off with snow-shoes. The fire is made in the middle of the
lodge, and one or more families, as the case may be, live on each
side of the fire, every one having his or her particular place."
[Footnote: ib., p. 322.] He further remarks that "they have no
pottery," and that they boil water "by means of stones heated red
hot and thrown into the kettle." [Footnote: ib., p. 321.]
The principal fact to be noticed is that the lodge is comparted into
stalls open on the central space, in the midst of which is the
fire-pit, evidently for the accommodation of more families than one.
This arrangement of the interior will reappear in numerous other
cases. The Kutchin must be classed as savages, although near the
close of that condition.
The tribes of the valley of the Columbia lived more or less in
villages, but, like the tribes of California, were without
horticulture and without pottery. But they found an abundant
subsistence in the shell-fish of the coast, and in the myriads of
fish in the Columbia and its tributaries. They also subsisted upon
kamash and other bread roots of the prairies, which they cooked in
ground ovens, and upon berries and game. They were expert boatmen
and fishermen, manufactured water-tight baskets, implements of wood,
stone, and bone, and used the bow and arrow. As another quite
remarkable fact, they used plank in their houses, made by splitting
logs with stone and elk-horn chisels. Like the Kutchin, they were in
the Upper Status of savagery.
When Lewis and Clarke visited the Columbia River district (1805-1806)
they found the Indian tribes living in houses of the plainest
communal type, and some of them approaching in ground dimensions and
in the number of their occupants the pueblo houses in New Mexico.
They speak of a house of the Chopunish (Nez Perces) as follows:
"This village of Tumachemootool is in fact only a single house one
hundred and fifty feet long, built after the Chopunish fashion, with
sticks, straw and dried grass. It contains twenty-four fires, about
double that number of families, and might perhaps muster a hundred
fighting men." [Footnote: Travels, etc., l. c., p. 548.]
This would give five hundred people in a single house. The number of
fires probably indicates the number of groups practicing communism
in living among themselves, though for aught we know it may have
been general in the entire household.
[Illustration: Fig. 6--Ground plan of Ncerchokioo.]
Another great house, Ncerchokioo, is thus described: "This large
building is two hundred and twenty-six feet in front, entirely above
ground, and may be considered a single house, because the whole is
under one roof, otherwise it would seem more like a range of
buildings, as it is divided into seven distinct apartments, each
thirty feet square, by means of broad boards set up on end from the
floor to the roof. The apartments are separated from each other by a
passage or alley four feet wide, extending through the whole depth
of the house, and the only entrance is from the alley through a
small hole about twenty inches wide and not more than three feet high.
The roof is formed of rafters and round poles laid on horizontally.
The whole is covered with a double roof of bark of white cedar."
[Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 503.]
The apartments, as in the previous case of the fires, may be
supposed to indicate the number of groups into which the great
household was subdivided for the practice of communism.
Elsewhere, speaking of the houses of the Clahclellahs, they remark:
"These houses are uncommonly large; one of them measured one hundred
and sixty by forty feet, and the frames are constructed in the usual
manner.... Most of the houses are built of boards and covered with
bark, though some of the more inferior kind are constructed wholly
of cedar bark, kept smooth and flat by small splinters fixed
crosswise through the bark, at the distance of twelve or fourteen
inches apart." [Footnote: ib., p. 515.]
The houses of the coast tribes (Clatsops and Chinooks) are also
described. "The houses in this neighborhood are all large wooden
buildings, ranging in length from twenty to sixty feet, and from
fourteen to twenty in width. They are constructed in the following
manner: two posts of split timber or more, agreeable to the number
of partitions, are sunk in the ground, above which they rise to the
height of fourteen or eighteen feet. They are hollowed at the top,
so as to receive the end of a round beam or pole (ridge-pole)
stretching from one to the other, and forming the upper point of the
roof for the whole extent of the building. On each side of this
range is placed another, which forms the eaves of the house, and is
about five feet high; and as the building is often sunk to the depth
of four or five feet, the eaves come very near the surface of the
earth. Smaller pieces of timber are now extended by pairs, in the
form of rafters, from the lower to the upper beams, where they are
attached at both ends with cords of cedar bark. On these rafters two
or three ranges of small poles are placed horizontally, and secured
in the same way with strings of cedar bark. The sides are now made,
with a range of white boards, sunk a small distance into the ground,
with upper ends projecting above the poles at the eaves.... The
gable end and partitions are formed in the same way.... The roof is
than covered with a double range of thin boards, except an aperture
of two or three feet in the center, for the smoke to pass through.
The entrance is by a small hole, cut out of the boards, and just
large enough to admit the body. The very largest houses only are
divided by partitions, for though three or four families reside in
the same room, there is quite space enough for all of them. In the
center of each room is a space six or eight feet square, sunk to the
depth of twelve inches below the rest of the floor, and inclosed by
four pieces of square timber. Here they make the fire, for which
purpose pine bark is generally preferred. Around the fireplace mats
are placed, and serve as seats during the day, and very frequently
as beds at night. There is, however, a more permanent bed made by
fixing, in two or sometimes three sides of the room, posts reaching
from the roof to the ground, and at the distance of four feet from
the wall. From these posts to the wall itself, one or two ranges of
boards are placed so as to form shelves, in which they either sleep
or there stow away their various articles of merchandise."
[Footnote: Lewis and Clarke's Travels, p. 431.]
These explorers found the houses of the Indian tribes throughout the
Columbia Valley occupied by several families, the smallest of them
containing from twenty to forty persons, and the largest five hundred.
The presence of large households is fully shown as the rule in their
house-life. The practice of communism by the household, as stated by
these authors, has already (supra, p. 71) been presented. This
tendency to aggregation in groups, for subsistence and for mutual
protection, reveals the weakness of the single family in the
presence of the hardships of life. Communism in living was very
plainly a necessity of their condition.
In a recent description (1869) of the modern houses of the Makah
Indians of Cape Flattery, Washington Territory, by Mr. James G. Swan,
the old usage which led to joint-tenement houses still asserts itself.
Speaking of the manner of building these houses in detail, he
remarks that "they are designed to accommodate several families, and
are of various dimensions; some of them being sixty feet long by
thirty wide, and from ten to fifteen feet high." The houses were
made of split boards on a frame of timber. [Footnote: Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge, No. 220, p. 5.]
COMMUNAL HOUSES OF TRIBES IN LOWER STATUS OF BARBARISM.
[Illustration: Fig. 7--Frame of Ojibwa Wig-e-wam.]
Among the Indian tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism some
diversity existed in the plans of the lodge and house. Fig. 7, which
is taken from Schoolcraft's work on the Indian tribes, shows the
frame of an Ojibwa cabin or lodge of the best class, as it may still
be seen on the south shore of Lake Superior. Its mechanism is
sufficiently shown by the frame of elastic poles exhibited by the
figure. It is covered with bark, usually canoe birch, taken off in
large pieces and attached with splints. Its size on the ground
varied from ten to sixteen feet, and its height from six to ten.
Twigs of spruce or hemlock were strewn around the border of the
lodge on the ground floor, upon which blankets and skins were spread
for beds. The fire-pit was in the center of the floor, over which,
in the center of the roof, was an opening for the exit of the smoke.
Such a lodge would accommodate, in the aboriginal plan of living,
two and sometimes three married pairs with their children. Several
such lodges were usually found in a cluster, and the several
households consisted of related families, the principal portion
being of the same gens or clan. I am not able to state whether or
not the households thus united by the bond of kin practiced
communism in living in ancient times, but it seems probable. Carver,
who visited an Ojibwa village in Wisconsin in 1767, makes it appear
that each house was occupied by several families. "This town," he
remarks, "contains about forty houses, and can send out upwards of a
hundred warriors, many of whom are fine young men." This would give,
by the usual rule of computation, five hundred persons, and an
average of twelve persons to a house. [Footnote: Travels, etc., p. 65.]
[Illustration: Fig. 8--Dakota wii-ka-yo, or Skin Tent.]
When first discovered the Dakotas lived in houses constructed with a
frame of poles and covered with bark, each of which was large enough
for several families. They dwelt principally in villages in their
original area on the head-waters of the Mississippi, the present
State of Minnesota. Forced upon the plains by an advancing white
population, but after they had become possessed of horses, they
invented a skin tent eminently adapted to their present nomadic
condition. It is superior to any other in use among the American
aborigines from its roominess, its portable character, and the
facility with which it can be erected and struck. The frame consists
of thirteen poles from fifteen to eighteen feet in length, which,
after being tied together at the small ends, are raised upright with
a twist so as to cross the poles above the fastening. They are then
drawn apart at the large ends and adjusted upon the ground in the
rim of a circle usually ten feet in diameter. A number of untanned
and tanned buffalo skins, stitched together in a form adjustable to
the frame, are drawn around it and lashed together, as shown in the
figure. The lower edges are secured to the ground with tent-pins. At
the top there is an extra skin adjusted as a collar, so as to be
open on the windward side to facilitate the exit of the smoke. A low
opening is left for a doorway, which is covered with an extra skin
used as a drop. The fire-pit and arrangements for beds are the same
as in the Ojibwa lodge, grass being used in the place of spruce or
hemlock twigs. When the tent is struck, the poles are attached to a
horse, half on each side, like thills, secured to the horse's neck
at one end, and the other dragging on the ground. The skin-covering
and other camp-equipage are packed upon other horses and even upon
their dogs, and are thus transported from place to place on the
plains. This tent is so well adapted to their mode of life that it
has spread far and wide among the Indian tribes of the prairie region.
I have seen it in use among seven or eight Dakota sub-tribes, among
the Iowas, Otoes, and Pawnees, and among the Black-feet, Crows,
Assiniboines, and Crees. In 1878 I saw it in use among the Utes of
Colorado. A collection of fifty of these tents, which would
accommodate five hundred persons, make a picturesque appearance.
Under the name of the "Sibley tent" it is now in use, with some
modifications of plan, in the United States Army, for service on the
plains.
[Illustration: Fig. 9--Village of Pomeiock.]
Sir Richard Grenville's expedition in 1585 visited the south part of
the original colony of Virginia, now included in North Carolina.
They landed at Roanoke Island, and also ascended a section of
Albemarle Sound as far as the villages of Pomeiock and Secotan. An
artist, John Wyth, before mentioned, was a member of this expedition,
and we are indebted to him for a number of valuable sketches--the
two villages named among the number, of which copies are given,
together with representations of the people and of their industrial
arts. The description of Pomeiock is as follows: "The towns in
Virginia are very like those of Florida, not, however, so well and
firmly built, and are enclosed by a circular palisade with a narrow
entrance. In the town of Pomeiock, the buildings are mostly those of
the chiefs and men of rank. On one side is the Temple (council-house)
(A) of a circular shape, apart from the rest, and covered with mats
on every side, without windows, and receiving no light except
through the entrance. The residence of their chief (B) is
constructed of poles fixed in the ground, bound together and covered
with mats, which are thrown off at pleasure, to admit as much light
and air as they may require. Some are covered with the boughs of
trees. The natives, as represented in the plate, are indulging in
their sports. When the spring or pond is at a distance from the town,
they dig a ditch from it that supplies them with water." [Footnote:
Wyth's Sketches of Virginia, first published by De Bry, 1690,
Langly's ed., 1841, Plate 21.]
The village consisted of seventeen joint-tenement houses and a
council-house, arranged around a central open space, and surrounded
with a palisade. Here the Algonkin lodge, unlike that of the Ojibwas,
is a long, round-roofed house, apparently from fifty to eighty feet
in length, covered with movable matting in the place of bark, and
large enough to accommodate several families. The suggestion of this
author, that "the buildings were mostly those of chiefs and men of
rank," embodies the precise error which has repeated itself from
first to last with respect to the houses of American aborigines.
Because the houses at Pomeiock were large, they were the residences
of chiefs; and because the House of the Nuns at Uxmal was of
palatial extent, it was the exclusive residence of an Indian
potentate--conclusions opposed to the whole theory of Indian life
and institutions. Indian chiefs, the continent over, were housed
with the people, and no better, as a rule, than the poorest of them.
"Some of their towns," says the same author, "are not enclosed with
a palisade and are much more pleasant; Secotan, for example, here
drawn from nature. The houses are more scattered and a greater
degree of comfort and cultivation is observable, with gardens in
which tobacco (E) is cultivated, woods filled with deer, and fields
of corn. In the fields they erect a stage (F), in which a sentry is
stationed to guard against the depredations of birds and thieves.
Their corn they plant in rows (H), for it grows so large, with thick
stalk and broad leaves, that one plant would stint the other and it
would never arrive at maturity. They have also a curious place
(C) where they convene with their neighbors at their feasts, as more
fully shown on Plate 20, and from which they go to the feast (D). On
the opposite side is their place of prayer (B), and near to it the
sepulchre of their chiefs (A).... They have gardens for melons
(I), and a place (K) where they build their sacred fires. At a
little distance from the town is the pond (L) from which they obtain
their water." [Footnote: Sketches, etc., of Virginia, description of
Plate 22.]
The houses of the Powhatan Indians of Virginia proper, as described
by Captain John Smith, were precisely like those of Pomeiock and
Secotan. A part of the interior of the house in which Smith was
received by Powhatan as a prisoner is engraved upon his map of
Virginia, of which the following is a copy:
[Illustration: Fig. 11.--Interior of House of Virginia Indians.
With caption:
POWHATAN
Held this state & fashion when Capt. Smith
was delivered to him prisoner
1607]
"Their houses are built," Smith remarks, "like our arbors, of small
young sprigs, bowed and tied, and so close covered with mats, or the
bark of trees, very handsomely, that notwithstanding either wind,
rain, or weather, they are as warm as stoves, but very smoky; yet,
at the top of the house there is a hole made for the smoke to go
into right over the fire. Against the fire they lie on little
hurdles of reeds covered with a mat, borne from the ground a
foot or more by a hurdle of wood. On these, round about the
house, they lie, heads and points, one by the other against
the fire, some covered with mats, some with skins, and some
stark naked lie on the ground, from six to twenty in a house."
[Footnote: History of Virginia, i, 130.]
The engraving is probably an improvement upon the original house in
the symmetry of the structure, but it is doubtless a truthful
representation of its mechanism. It seems likely that a double set
of upright poles were used, one upon the outside and one on the
inside, between which the mattings of canes or willows were secured,
as the houses at Pomeiock and Secotan are ribbed externally at
internals of about eight feet, showing four, five, and six sections.
Each house, on this hypothesis, would be from twenty-four to
forty-eight feet long. A reference (supra, p. 67) has been made to
the size of the houses of the Virginia Indians, from which their
communistic character may be inferred.
In the "Journal of a Voyage to New York," in 1679-1680, by Jasper
Dankers and Peter Sluyter, edited and translated by Hon. Henry C.
Murphy, there is a careful description of a house of the Nyack
Indians of Long Island, an Algonkin tribe, affiliated linguistically
with the Virginia Indians. The Nyack house corresponds very closely
with those last named. "We went from hence to her habitation," these
authors remark, "where we found the whole troop together, consisting
of seven or eight families, and twenty or twenty-two persons, I
should think. Their house was low and long, about sixty feet long
and fourteen or fifteen feet wide. The bottom was earth; the sides
and roof were made of reed and the bark of chestnut trees; the posts
or columns were limbs of trees stuck in the ground, and all fastened
together. The top or ridge of the roof was open about half a foot
wide, from one end to the other, in order to let the smoke escape,
in the place of a chimney. On the sides or walls of the house, the
roof was so low that you could hardly stand under it. The entrance,
or doors, which were at both ends, were so small and low that they
had to stoop down and squeeze themselves to get through them. The
doors were made of reed or flat bark. In the whole building there
was no lime, stone, iron, or lead. They build their fires in the
middle of the floor, according to the number of families which live
in it, so that from one end to the other each of them boils its own
pot, and eats when it likes, not only the families by themselves,
but each Indian alone, according as he is hungry, at all hours,
morning, noon, and night. By each fire are the cooking utensils,
consisting of a pot, a bowl or calabash, and a spoon, also made of a
calabash. These are all that relate to cooking. They lie upon mats
with their feet towards the fire, on each side of it. They do not
sit much upon anything raised up, but, for the most part, sit on the
ground or squat on their ankles. Their other household articles
consist of a calabash of water, out of which they drink, a small
basket in which to carry and keep their maize and small beans, and a
knife.... All who live in one house are generally of one stock or
descent, as father and mother with their offspring. Their bread is
maize pounded on a block by a stone, but not fine. This is mixed
with water and made into a cake, which they bake under the hot ashes.
They gave us a small piece when we entered, and although the grains
were not ripe, and it was half baked and coarse grains, we
nevertheless had to eat it, or, at least, not throw it away before
them, which they would have regarded as a great sin or a great
affront." [Footnote: Journal, etc., p. 124.]
There is nothing in these statements forbidding the supposition that
the household described practiced communism in living. The
composition of the household shows that it was formed on the
principle of gentle kin, while the several families cooked at the
different fires, which was the usual practice in the different tribes;
the stores were probably common, and the household under a matron.
It will be noticed also that they gave him maize bread when he first
entered the house. He little supposed that it was in obedience to a
law or usage universal in the Indian family.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.--Ho-de'-no-sote of the Seneca-Iroquois.]
During the greater part of the year the Iroquois resided in villages.
The size of the village was estimated by the number of the houses,
and the size of the house by the number of fires it contained. One
of the largest of the Seneca-Iroquois villages, situated at Mendon,
near Rochester, N. Y. is thus described by Mr. Greenbalgh, who
visited it in 1677: "Tiotohatton is on the brink or edge of a hill,
has not much cleared ground, is near the river Tiotohatton [outlet
of Honeoye Lake], which signifies bending. It lies to the westward
of Canagora (Canandaigua) about thirty miles, contains about 120
houses, being the largest of all the houses we saw, the ordinary
being fifty to sixty feet long, with twelve and thirteen fires in
one house. They have a good store of corn growing to the northward
of the town". [Footnote: Documentary History of New York, vol i. p 13.]
The "long-house" of the Iroquois, from which they called themselves,
as one confederated people, Ho-de'-no-sau-nee (People of the
Long-House), was from fifty to eighty and sometimes one hundred feet
long. It consisted of a strong frame of upright poles set in the
ground, which were strengthened with horizontal poles attached with
withes, and surmounted with a triangular, and in some cases with a
round roof. It was covered over, both sides and roof, with large
strips of elm bark tied to the frame with strings or splints. An
external frame of poles for the sides and of rafters for the roof
were then adjusted to hold the bark shingles between them, the two
frames being tied together.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.--Ground-plan of Seneca-Iroquois Long-House.]
The interior of the house was comparted at intervals of six or eight
feet, leaving each chamber entirely open like a stall upon the
passage way which passed through the center of the house from end to
end. At each end was a doorway cohered with suspended skins. Between
each four apartments, two on a side, was a fire-pit in the center of
the hall, used in common by their occupants. Thus a house with five
fires would contain twenty apartments and accommodate twenty families,
unless some apartments were reserved for storage. They were warm,
roomy, and tidily-kept habitations. Raised bunks were constructed
around the walls of each apartment for beds. From the roof-poles
were suspended their strings of corn in the ear, braided by the husks,
also strings of dried squashes and pumpkins. Spaces were contrived
here and there to store away their accumulations of provisions. Each
house, as a rule was occupied by related families, the mothers and
their children belonging to the same gens, while their husbands and
the fathers of these children belonged to other gentes; consequently
the gens or clan of the mother largely predominated in the household.
Whatever was taken in the hunt or raised by cultivation by any
member of the household, as has elsewhere been stated, was for the
common benefit. Provisions were made a common stock within the
household.
Here was communism in living carried out in practical life, but
limited to the household, and an expression of the principle in the
plan of the house itself. Having found it in one stock as well
developed as the Iroquois, a presumption of its universality in the
Indian family at once arises, because it was a law of their condition.
Evidence of its general prevalence has elsewhere been presented.
In a previous chapter the usages of the Iroquois in regard to eating
have been given. It came practically to one cooked meal each day.
The separate fires in each house were for convenience in cooking,
all the stores in the house being common. The plan of life within
them was studied and economical. This is shown by the presence of a
matron in each household, who made a division of the food from the
kettle to each family according to their needs, and reserved what
remained for future disposal. It shows system and organization in
their long-houses, with a careful supervision of their stores, and
forethought as well as equity in the management and distribution of
their food. In these households, formed on the principle of kin, was
laid the foundation for that "mother power" which was even more
conspicuous in the tribes of the Old World, and which Professor
Bachofen was the first to discuss under the name of gyneocracy and
mother-right. [Footnote: Das Mutterrecht, Stuttgart, 1861.]
Since the mothers who dwelt together were usually sisters, own or
collateral, and of the same gens, and since their children were also
of the gens of their mother, the preponderating number in the
household would be of gentile kin. The right and the influence of
the mother were protected and strengthened through the maternal as
well as the gentile bond. The husbands were in the minority as to
kindred. In case of separation it was the husband and not the wife
who left the house. But this influence of the woman did not reach
outward to the affairs of the gens phratry, or tribe, but seems to
have commenced and ended with the household. This view is quite
consistent with the life of patient drudgery and of general
subordination to the husband which the Iroquois wife cheerfully
accepted as the portion of her sex. Among the Grecian tribes descent
had been changed to the male line at the commencement of the
historical period. It thus reversed the position of the wife and
mother in the household: she was of a different gens from her
children, as well as her husband; and under monogamy was now
isolated from her gentile kindred, living in the separate and
exclusive house of her husband. Her new condition tended to subvert
and destroy that power and influence which descent in the female
line and the joint-tenement houses had created. It is, therefore,
the more surprising that so many traces of this anterior condition
should have remained in the Grecian and other tribes which Professor
Bachofen has pointed out, since gyneocracy and mother-right, as
discussed by him, must have originated among these tribes when under
the gentile organization, and with descent in the female line.
The "Joint Undivided Family" of the Hindus at the present time,
"joint in food, worship, and estate," brought to our notice by Sir
Henry Maine, [Footnote: Early History of Institutions, Holt's ed., pp.
100 and 106.] is a similar but probably more numerous household
than that of the Iroquois. As soon as special investigation is made,
joint-tenement houses and communism in living are found to be
persistent features of barbarous life in the Old World as well as
the New, but limited to the household. Strabo informs us that the
Gauls lived in great houses, constructed of planks and wicker, with
dome roofs covered with heavy thatch. [Footnote: Lib. iv, c. 4, s. 3.]
Wherever such houses existed there is at least a presumption that
they were occupied by several families, who formed a single
household and practiced communism.
The Iroquois long-houses disappeared before the commencement of the
present century. Very little is now remembered by the Indians
themselves of their form and mechanism, or of the plan of life
within them. Some knowledge of these houses remains among that class
of Indians who are curious about their ancient customs. It has
passed into the traditionary form, and is limited to a few
particulars. A complete understanding of the mode of life in these
long-houses will not, probably, ever be recovered. In 1743 Mr. John
Bartram attended a council at Onondaga, and kept a journal,
afterwards published, in which he inserted a ground plan of the
long-house in which they were quartered. It is the first ground plan
of one of these houses ever published, so far as the author is aware,
and the only one prior to the appearance of Johnson's Cyclopaedia in
1875.
[Illustration: Fig. 14--Bartram's ground-plan and cross-section of
Onondaga Long-House, in 1743.]
It should be noted that in 1696 Count Frontenac invaded Onondaga
with a large French and Indian force, and that the Onondagas
destroyed their principal village and retired. "The cabins of the
Indians," says the relator, "and the triple palisade which encircled
their fort were found entirely burnt." [Footnote: Documentary
History of New York, p. 332.]
The new village visited by Mr. Bartram was probably quite near the
site of the old. He says, "The town in its present state is about
two or three miles long, yet the scattered cabins on both sides of
the water are not above forty in number; many of them hold two
families, but all stand single, so that the whole town is a strange
mixture of cabins, interspersed with great patches of high grass,
bushes and shrubs, some of peas, corn, and squashes.... We alighted
at the council-house, where the chiefs were already assembled to
receive us, which they did with a grave, cheerful complaisance
according to their custom. They showed us where to lay our luggage,
and repose ourselves during our stay with them, which was in the two
end apartments of this large house. The Indians that came with us
were placed over against us. This cabin is about eighty feet long
and seventeen broad, the common passage six feet wide, and the
apartments on each side five feet, raised a foot above the passage
by a long sapling hewed square, and fitted with joists that go from
it to the back of the house. On these joists they lay large pieces
of bark, and on extraordinary occasions spread mats made of rushes,
which favor we had. On these floors they set or lye down every one
as he will. The apartments are divided from each other by boards or
bark six or seven feet long from the lower floor to the upper, on
which they put their lumber. When they have eaten their hominy, as
they set in each apartment before the fire, they can put the bowl
over head, having not above five foot to reach. They set on the
floor sometimes at each end, but mostly at one. They have a shed to
put their wood into in the winter, or in the summer to set, converse
or play, that has a door to the south. All the sides and roof of the
cabin is made of bark, bound fast to poles set in the ground, and
bent round on the top, or set aflat for the roof as we set our
rafters; over each fire-place they leave a hole to let out the smoke,
which in rainy weather they cover with a piece of bark, and this
they can easily reach with a pole to push it on one side or quite
over the hole. After this manner are most of their cabins built."
[Footnote: Observations, etc.; Travels to Onondaga, Lond. ed., 1751,
pp. 40, 41]
The end section shows a round roof, as in the houses of the Virginia
Indians, and the ground plan agrees in all respects with the old
long-houses of the Seneca-Iroquois as described by them to the
author before he had seen Mr. Bartram's plan.
In the Documentary History of New York (vol. iii, p. 14) there is a
remarkable picture of the principal village of the Onondagas which
was visited or rather attacked by Champlain in 1615. The location of
this village was not established until 1877, when General John S.
Clarke, of Auburn, by means of Champlain's map and sketch of the
village, and his relation of the particulars of the expedition,
found the site of the village in the town of Fenner, some miles
northeast of the Onondaga Valley.
It was situated upon the edge of a natural pond, covering ten acres
of land, and between a small brook which emptied into the pond on
the left and the outlet of the pond which passed it on the right.
The space covered by the village site was about six acres of land,
strongly fortified by a series of palisades. Champlain states in his
relation that "their village was enclosed with strong quadruple
palisades of large timber, thirty feet high, interlocked the one
with the other, with an interval of not more than half a foot
between them, with galleries in the form of parapets, defended with
double pieces of timber, proof against our arquebuses, and on one
side they had a pond with a never-failing supply of water, from
which proceeded a number of gutters which they had laid along the
intermediate space, throwing the water without, and rendering it
effectual inside for the purpose of extinguishing the fire. Such was
their mode of fortification and defence, which was much stronger
than the villages of the Attigouatuans (Hurons) and others."
[Footnote: Doc. Hist. New York, iii, 14.]
Although Champlain attacked this place with fire-arms, then first
heard by the Onondagas, and by means of a rude tower of his invention,
and with a considerable force of French and Indians, he was unable
to capture it, and retired. The use of water, with gutters to flood
the ground upon an outer palisade when attacked with fire, as
imperfectly shown in the engraving, was certainly ingenious. General
Clarke has investigated the defensive works of the Iroquois, and it
is to be hoped that he will soon give the results to the public.
Knowing, as we now do, that the space inclosed within the palisades
was about six acres of land, the houses are not only seen to be log
houses, but arranged or constructed side by side in blocks, and the
whole thrown together in the form of a square, with an open space in
the center. The houses seem to be in threes and fours, and even sixes,
side by side, and from sixty to one hundred feet in length; but if
this conclusion is fairly warranted by the engraving, it might well
be that each house was separated from its neighbor by a narrow open
space or lane. It is the only representation I have ever seen of a
palisaded village of the Iroquois of the period of their discovery.
It covered about fifty-four acres of land.
The Mandans and Minnetarees of the Upper Missouri constructed a
timber-framed house, superior in design and in mechanical execution
to those of the Indians north of New Mexico. In 1862 I saw the
remains of the old Mandan village shortly after its abandonment by
the Arickarees, its last occupants. The houses, nearly all of which
were of the same model, were falling into decay--for the village was
then deserted of inhabitants, but some of them were still perfect,
and the plan of their structure easily made out. The above
ground-plan of the village was taken from the work of Prince
Maximilian, and the remaining illustrations are from sketches and
measurements of the author. It was situated upon a bluff on the west
side of the Missouri, and at a bend in the river which formed an
obtuse angle, and covered about six acres of land. The village was
surrounded with a stockade made of timbers set vertically in the
ground, and about ten feet high, but then in a dilapidated state.
[Illustration: Fig. 16.--Mandan Village Plot.]
The houses were circular in external form, the walls being about
five feet high, and sloping inward and upward from the ground, upon
which rested an inclined roof, both the exterior wall and the roof
being plastered over with earth a foot and a half thick. For this
reason they have usually been called "dirt lodges."
[Illustration: Fig. 17.--Ground-plan of a Mandan House.]
These houses are about forty feet in diameter, with the floor sunk a
foot or more below the surface of the ground, six feet high on the
inside at the line of the wall and from twelve to fifteen feet high
at the center. Twelve posts, six or eight inches in diameter, are
set in the ground, at equal distances, in the circumference of a
circle, and rising about six feet above the level of the floor.
String-pieces resting in forks cut in the ends of these posts, form
a polygon at the base and also upon the ground floor. Against these
an equal number of braces are sunk in the ground about four feet
distant, which slanting upward, are adjusted by means of depressions
cut in the ends, so as to hold both the posts and the stringers
firmly in their places. Slabs of wood are then set in the spaces
between the braces at the same inclination, and resting against the
stringers, which when completed surrounded the lodge with a wooden
wall. Four round posts, each six or eight inches in diameter, are
set in the ground near the center of the floor, in the angles of a
square, ten feet apart, and rising from ten to fifteen feet above
the ground floor. These again are connected by stringers resting in
forks at their tops, upon which and the external wall the rafters
rest.
[Illustration: Fig. 18.--Cross-section of House.]
The engraving exhibits a cross-section, as described. Poles three or
four inches in diameter are placed as rafters from the external wall
to the string-pieces above the central parts, and near enough
together to give the requisite strength to support thee earth
covering placed upon the roof. These poles were first covered over
with willow matting, upon which prairie grass was overspread, and
over all a deep covering of earth. An opening was left in the center,
about four feet in diameter, for the exit of the smoke and for the
admission of light. The interior was spacious and tolerably well
lighted, although the opening in the roof and a single doorway were
the only apertures through which light could penetrate. There was
but one entrance, protected by what has been called the Eskimo
doorway; that is, by a passage some five feet wide, ten or twelve
feet long, and about six feet high, constructed with split timbers,
roofed with poles, and covered with earth. Buffalo-robes suspended
at the outer and inner entrances supplied the place of doors. Each
house was comparted by screens of willow matting or unhaired skins
suspended from the rafters, with spaces between for storage. These
slightly-constructed apartments opened towards the central fire like
stalls, thus defining an open central area around the fire-pit,
which was the gathering place of the inmates of the lodge. This
fire-pit was about five feet in diameter, a foot deep, and encircled
with flat stones set up edgewise. A hard, smooth, earthen floor
completed the interior. Such a lodge would accommodate five or six
families, embracing thirty or forty persons. It was a communal house,
in accordance with the usages and institutions of the American
aborigines, and growing naturally out of their mode of life. I
counted forty-eight houses, winch would average forty feet in
diameter, all constructed upon this plan besides several rectangular
log houses of later erection and of the American type.
[Illustration: Fig. 19.--Mandan house.]
These houses, of which a representation is given in Fig. 19, were
thickly studded together to economize the space within the stockade,
so that in walking through the village you passed along some
circular foot-paths. There was no street, and it was impossible to
see in any direction except for short distances. In the center there
was an open space, where their religious rites and festivals were
observed. [Footnote: The war post, which stood in the center, and a
number of stone and bone implements I brought away with me, as
mementoes of the place. They are now in my collection.]
Not the least interesting fact connected with these creditable
structures was the quantity of materials required for their erection
and the amount of labor required for their transportation for long
distances down the river, and to fashion them, with the aid of fire
and stone implements, into such comfortable dwellings. The trees are
here confined to the bottom lands between the banks of the river,
the river being bordered for miles by open prairies, and the trees
growing in patches at long distances apart. To cut the timber
without metallic implements, and to transport it without animal power,
indicate a degree of persevering industry highly creditable to a
people who, at this stage of progress, are averse to labor on the
part of the males. Habitual male industry makes its first appearance
in the next or the Middle Status of barbarism. The men here did the
heavy work.
In the spaces between the lodges were their drying-scaffolds (Fig. 20),
one for each lodge, which were nearly as conspicuous in the distance
as the houses themselves. They were about twenty feet long, twelve
feet wide, and seven feet high to the flooring, made of posts set
upright, with cross-pieces resting in forks. Other poles were then
placed longitudinally, upon which was a flooring of willow mats.
These scaffolds, mounted with ladders (Fig. 21), were used for
drying their skins, and also their maize, meat, and vegetables.
[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Drying scaffold.]
[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Mandan ladder.]
The Indians knew the use of the ladder, and some of them made an
excellent article before the discovery of America. When Coronado
visited and captured the seven so-called cities of Cibola in
1540-1542, he found the people living in seven or eight large
joint-tenement houses, each capable of holding about a thousand
persons. These houses were without entrances from the ground, but
they mounted to the first terrace by means of ladders, and so to
each successive story above. "The ladders which they have for their
houses," Coronado says in his relation, "are all in a manner movable
and portable as ours be." [Footnote: Hakluyt, Coll. of Voyages,
London ed., 1812, vol. 5, p. 498.]
The ladders at the Mandan village were made of two limbs growing
nearly parallel and severed below the junction, as shown in the
figure, and set with the forked end upon the ground, and the ends
against the scaffold. Depressions were sunk in the rails to receive
the rounds, which were secured by rawhide strings. They were usually
from ten to twelve feet long, and one or two at each scaffold.
Situated thus picturesquely on a bluff, at an angle of the river,
with houses of this peculiar model and with such an array of
scaffolds rising up among them, the village was strikingly
conspicuous for some distance both above and below on the river, and
presented a remarkable appearance.
Afterwards, at the present Minnetaree and Mandan village about
sixty-five miles above on the east side of the Missouri, and also at
the new Arickaree village on the west side, and quite near it, I had
an opportunity to see houses precisely similar to those described in
actual occupation by the Indians, with their interior arrangements
and their mode of life.
A reference, at least, should be made to the Maricopas and Mohaves
of the Lower Colorado River, who, although village Indians of the
pueblo type, still live in ordinary communal houses of the northern
type, which are thus described by General Emory: "They (the Maricopas)
occupy thatched cottages thirty or forty feet in diameter, made of
twigs of cottonwood trees, interwoven with straw of wheat, cornstalks,
and cane." [Footnote: Notes, &c., New Mexico, p. 132. See also
Bartlet's Personal Narrative, p. 230.]
Those occupied by the Mohaves, as described by Captain Sitgreave,
are similar in character. [Footnote: Expedition, &c., Zunyi and
Colorado, p. 19.]
The Pimas of the Gila River, on the contrary, claim that their
ancestors erected houses of adobe brick, and cultivated by irrigation.
They point to the remains of ancient structures and of old acequias
in the valley of the Gila, as Captain Crossman informs us, as
the works of their forefathers. But now their condition is very
similar to that of the Mohaves. The last-named writer remarks that
"generally several married couples with their children live in one hut."
[Footnote: Smithsonian Report for 1871, p. 415.]
The first two tribes, although their antecedent history is little
known, seem to be in a transitional stage from the Lower to the
Middle Status of barbarism, having passed into the horticultural and
sedentary condition without being far enough advanced to imitate
their near neighbors in the use of adobe brick and of stone in their
houses. They seem to be existing examples of that ever-recurring
advancement of ruder tribes in past ages, through which the Village
Indians of the pueblo type were constantly replenished from the more
barbarous tribes. The present Taos Indians are another example.
It is made reasonably plain, I think, from the facts stated, that in
the Upper Status of savagery, and also in the Lower Status of
barbarism, the Indian household was formed of a number of families
of gentile kin; that they practiced communism in living in the
household, and that this principle found expression in their house
architecture and predetermined its character.