8oz THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



zontal, being much thicker than it is over the gabled portion. 

 The floor is kept hard and clean inside, and most of the domestic 

 arrangements are carried on in the open air. It will be observed 

 that they have a lot of corn drying in a heap up on the roof, and 

 their pottery utensils are in front outside. 



Formerly it would appear that these Mojaves built a some- 

 what better home for themselves than this, and Lieutenant 

 Whipple has said, * in reference to the figure of one he published 

 in his report, that " the large Cottonwood posts, and the substan- 

 tial roof of the wide shed in front, are characteristic of the archi- 

 tecture of this people. This particular house appears to run into 

 a sand-bank, and is peculiar. Others are formed in the valley, 

 with all their walls supported by posts ; and the longitudinal 

 beams have their interstices filled up with straw or mud-mortar." 

 .... The interior of a house consists of a single room with 

 thatched roof, sandy floor, and walls so closely cemented by mud 

 as to be nearly air-tight. It has no window, and receives no 

 light except by the door which leads to the shed, and by a small 

 hole at the top which gives egress to the smoke of fires. Struct- 

 ures similar to this are common throughout the lower portion of 

 the Colorado Valley, and may be found also among the Coco- 

 Maricopas and Pimas of the Rio Gila. With the latter, however, 

 the circular hut, described by Mr. Bartlett, is much in vogue. In 

 such gloomy abodes the Indians seek shelter from cold. Arranged 

 around the walls are large earthen jars, in which they pre- 

 serve their main supply of fruit and vegetables." Mojaves wear 

 scarcely any clothing, especially the men, as maybe seen from the 

 individuals shown in my figure. 



The more nomadic tribes of Indians, such as the Sioux of 

 the North and others, when they come to build anything better 

 than a tepee, erect a regular wigwam, a large, commodious 

 structure of a conical form, supported by the cut trunks of sap- 

 lings, and covered with ornamented or non-ornamented tanned 

 buffalo-hides. Frequently I have been in one of those wigwams, 

 and at almost any time of the year they are very comfortable, 

 though rather warm in summer. All the buffaloes now being 

 practically exterminated, those tribes which formerly built hide 

 wigwams will now have to resort to the construction of other 

 kinds of homes. Probably they will do as the Navajos have done, 

 and come to erect houses more or less like the primitive one-room 

 buildings of the early squatters. Navajos, however, place the 

 timbers side by side in the vertical position, filling the interstices 

 with mud-plaster, whereas, as we know, in the ordinary log-cabin 

 they are laid one on top of another in the horizontal method, with 



* Pacific Railroad Reports, vol. iii, p. 23, (1853-'54). 



