INDIAN DWELLINGS — WATERMAN 473 



Pacific coast, the names of houses are wonderfully high sounding. 

 Often they refer to the totem crests of the owners. Some houses 

 that I have been in myself are "Eagle leg house," "Black-bear 

 house," "Wolf house," and "Killer-whale house." Such names as 

 "Sun house," "Daylight house," "Darkness house," "Moonlight 

 house," "Mountain house," or "Thunder house" indicate the owner's 

 high rank. The names just given are Tlingit from southeastern 

 Alaska. Swanton reports a Haida who had a house so grand that he 

 called it by a name signifying that clouds moving across the sky 

 knocked against it. 



The fact that at the northern and southern limits of the region 

 the houses have names certainly suggests a former connection. It is 

 my opinion that the gabled plank houses represent a diffusion up and 

 down the coast. As we go toward the center the size increases; at 

 the ends of the region are similarities of form, though the use of 

 totem poles in the north gives a different atmosphere externally. In 

 the case of all gabled houses the gable end is toward the beach. It 

 is a fair presumption that the flat-roofed houses of the Fraser River 

 region represent a later form, possibly brought in with some less 

 highly cultured Salish tribes which have overrun this region. The 

 gabled form would appear to be the older, and its distribution was 

 probably continuous along the coast at some former period. This 

 appears rather clearly from the map (fig. 1). 



The dwelling house in northern California, made of planks split 

 from the redwood tree, was quite a tidy structure. Inside the house 

 a pit was dug, four or five feet deep, in which the inmates lived. 

 Around on a sort of earthen shelf, between the edge of the pit and 

 the walls, was a space for storing things — baskets full of acorns, 

 piles of dried fish and eels, furs, pelts, bows, a thousand varieties of 

 miscellaneous property. A person descended to the bottom of the 

 pit by means of a short ladder of notches in a log. A fire, of course, 

 burned in the center of the pit; and on racks overhead there was 

 usually fish or deer meat in process of preservation. The men were 

 not allowed to sleep within this house. At nightfall all males, young 

 and old, were obliged to go to certain special structures, known as 

 sweat houses. These were underground chambers carefully closed 

 up and almost air-tight. The only time that families were together 

 was during a season in the spring and summer when the Indians 

 scattered, camping along the river and fishing for salmon. 



The houses in Alaska were from 40 to 70 feet broad and sometimes 

 80 or 100 feet long, and I have seen a house pit more than 8 feet 

 deep. Although they did not rival in size the prodigious habita- 

 tions around Puget Sound, the Alaskan houses were much more 

 elaborate, as might be expected from the fact that these Indians 



