NO. l8 HILLERS-POWELL INDIAN PHOTOGRAPHS STEWARD 5 



arclized than was actually the case. These photographs, taken when 

 strictly aboriginal types of shelters still prevailed, correct such an 

 impression and illustrate the great variability brought about by 

 the adaptation of construction to various special conditions and 

 circumstances. 



The photographs of the Southern Paiute, however, were evidently 

 taken during the warm season and thus throw no light on the winter 

 house. Other tribes of these deserts used shelters comparable to these 

 during the summer, but in winter, when they settled down near their 

 stored foods to remain during the cold weather, they erected some- 

 what sturdier and larger conical lodges. During the summer, such 

 lodges were not only unnecessary but inappropriate. The subsistence 

 routine required continual movement from one locality to another as 

 different foods became available. Shelters were, therefore, no more 

 than temporary structures designed only for the few days or weeks 

 that would be spent at any food camp. Powell 4 wrote of the Kaibab 

 Paiute, "During the inclement season they live in shelters made of 

 boughs, or bark of the cedar, which they strip off in long shreds. In 

 this climate, most of the year is dry and warm, and during such time 

 they do not care for shelter. Clearing a small, circular space of 

 ground, they bank it around with brush and sand, and wallow in it 

 during the day, and huddle together in a heap at night, men, women, 

 and children; buckskin, rags, and sand." 



The extreme of simplicity in Kaibab shelters was to pitch camp 

 beneath a tree, little or no effort being made to improve upon nature 

 (pis. ii, 12, 13, /?). When construction was undertaken, houses 

 tended to be semiconical, erected either upon poles planted in the 

 ground or upon interlocking poles (pi. 21, a, b) or almost completely 

 conical (pi. 14, a). House poles were covered with various materials, 

 no doubt those which were locally available, such as boughs (pi. 

 9, a, b) and willows (pi. 10, /;). One house had a fire in the center 

 and the roof open above (pi. 20, a). 



The Ute had acquired the tipi through contact with the Plains 

 tribes. Those shown in the photographs (pis. 23, 0, b, 24, a, 25) are 

 all undecorated. That in plate 24, a, was, according to the title of the 

 picture, made of elkskin. When tipis could not be built or when 

 they were unnecessary, a conical house, described by informants as 

 similar to the brush house of the Paiute and Shoshoni, was used. 

 That shown in plate 26, b, however, is larger and better constructed 



4 Op. cit., p. 126. 



