INDIAN DWELLINGS WATERMAN 471 



ancient and modern are themselves rectangular, but the others seem 

 to be much more characteristic.'' Apparently we have in the exceed- 

 ingly picturesque and interesting structures of the Southwestern 

 Indians a progressive transformation of a very ancient, simple, and 

 wide-spread type of dwelling which we have already traced in other 

 areas. 



PLANK HOUSES OF THE TRIBES OF THE PACIFIC SLOPE 



On the western edge of the continent along the Pacific Ocean, 

 in the narrow rainy belt already mentioned, the Indians make houses 

 that are outwardly as different from any of those we have been dis- 

 cussing as could well be imagined. The forest trees grow to a 

 tremendous size, from 8 to 12 feet in diameter. The wood 

 is soft, and the logs split easily. The natives work the lumber up 

 in various forms with the help of such primitive tools as stone adzes, 

 mauls, and wedges of yew or antler, and the houses in this entire 

 region are made of plank. 



The ordinary notion of Indian dwellings has to be quickly modi- 

 fied when we discuss tlie plank houses. In northern California, 

 houses are intricate and rather ingenious stractures put together 

 with a considerable knowledge of carpentry, without nails of course. 

 In size they are rather small, the largest measuring 18 by 30 feet. 

 The houses of the Columbia Eiver region are somewhat larger, 

 measuring 25 by 75 feet. Farther north again in the region of 

 Puget Sound their size becomes surprising. H. A. Goldsborough, 

 who went inside a house on the present Suquamish Reservation in 

 1855 and measured all the principal beams, gives its length as 520 

 feet.® A reputable author, Simon Fraser, reports a house standing 

 on the bank of the river now bearing his name, that was 646 feet 

 long and 60 feet wide, saying particularly that it was all under one 

 roof.® At the mouth of this river he saw a " fort " (whatever it 

 may have been) 1,500 feet long and 90 feet wide. Hill-Tout, whose 

 statements are to be relied upon, says he has seen a house more than 

 1,000 feet in length." I have myself seen houses with roof beams 

 more than 4 feet in diameter ; and, in other houses, wall planks more 

 than 5 feet wide. The ruins of these Indian plank houses are dis- 

 tributed from Humboldt Bay in northern California to southeastern 



'P. E. Goddard : Indians of the Southwest, Amer. Museum of Nat. Hist. Handbook Ser., 

 No. 2, New York, 1913, p. 30. 



* His measurements are quoted in George Gibbs : Tribes of Western Washington and 

 Northwestern Oregon, Contribs. to North Amer. Ethnology, Vol. I, TJ. S. Dept. of the 

 Interior, Washington, D. C, 1877, pp. 157-241 ; reference on p. 215. 



9 Simon Fraser : Journal of a Voyage from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Coast, 

 1808 (Les bourgeois de la Compagnie du Nordouest ; R^cits de voyages, lettres, et rap- 

 ports in^dits relatifs au nord-oiiest Canadien, S^r. 1), Quebec, 1889, p. 200. 



>» C. Hill-Tout : British North America, I : The Fsir West, tlie Home of the Salish and 

 Den6 (Series: The Native Races of the British Empire), London, 1907, p. 51. 



