800 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



feet in diameter. To make one, a hollow space is excavated with 

 sharp sticks and their hands, and the earth is banked up around 

 the circumference until they have a bowl-shaped depression 

 about a foot and a half deep. Around the edge of this, bushes 

 or branches of trees are stuck, bent over and fastened together 

 to form a round top. In winter it is thatched with grass, tide, or 

 soap-weed, so that it will shed rain. An opening is left on one 

 side, which serves as an outlet for smoke as well as a doorway. 

 The fire is made just inside the opening. For a bed they break 

 up the ground, let it dry, pick out the stones, and then spread 

 down dry grass. Seeds, meat, buckskins, extra clothing, etc., are 

 hung outside on upright poles. Formerly only a few huts were 

 usually found together, and they were occupied by members of 

 one family, as these people had to scatter over the country in 

 small parties and move frequently in order to obtain a sufficient 

 supply of food ; but in seasons of plenty, villages of about one 

 hundred souls would be formed, when the huts of each family 

 were always built in a group by themselves." 



As primitive as these dwellings now are, they were found to 

 be somewhat more so by Lieutenant Whipple in 1853, and he re- 

 ports that " an Apache wigwam is as rude, it is believed, as any 

 race of human beings have been known to construct for abodes. 

 These huts are usually isolated in some mountain gorge, near a 

 rivulet or spring, and are composed of broken branches of trees. 

 They are covered with weeds, grass, or earth, such as may be ob- 

 tained most readily. A large flat or concave stone, upon which 

 they grind corn or grass seed to flour, is the only utensil or article 

 of furniture that they do not remove in their wanderings. Visits 

 to the houses of Mexicans or their more enterprising Indian 

 neighbors excite no desire to improve their condition by the 

 erection of more comfortable habitations. Tents they do not use, 

 even when robbed from Mexicans or some poor party of emigrants 

 surprised and murdered. The Tontos, Yampais, and most of the 

 Apache Indians within New Mexico and California are equally 

 barbarous and rude in the construction of their habitations." 



Those curious people, the Havesu-pai Indians, living in a 

 great, deep canon in Arizona, also build lodges of rushes and 

 limbs, but they are rather more substantial than those I have 

 described for the Navajos and Apaches. This is due to the fact 

 that they use rough timber uprights, and a few stout pieces for 

 rafters. Their houses are also more commodious, although they 

 rarely contain more than the one large living-room.* 



* Sbufeldt, R. W. Some Observations on the Havesu-pai Indians. Proceedings of the 

 United States National Museum. Vol. xiv, pp. 387-390. Plates XXV and XXVI of this 

 paper show the plans of the houses constructed by these Indians. Washington, 1891. 



