610 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



their dwellings, which are of a circular form, of about ten or twelve 

 paces in circumference, made of logs split in halves * * * and 

 covered with roofs of straw, nicely put on, which protect them from 

 wind and rain. * * * They change their habitations from place 

 to place as circumstances of situation and season may require ; this is 

 easily done, as they have only to take with them their mats, and they 

 have other houses prepared at once. The father and the whole family 

 dwell together in one house in great numbers ; in some we saw twenty- 

 five or thirty persons-" ^ Another version of the report describes the 

 habitations as having been "made with half circles of timber," 

 which would clearly indicate the circular, dome-shaped wigwam, 

 formed by bending and securing small saplings or branches, and 

 covering the frame with mats made of rushes, or sheets of bark, or 

 possibly with both, as is done by the O jib way. And later it will be 

 shown how perfectly this early description will apply to the present- 

 day Ojibway wigwam as erected in the southern part of their 

 country. 



The habitations of the native tribes of tidewater Virginia, tribes 

 which constituted the Powhatan confederacy of early colonial days, 

 as well as the extreme southern members of the Algonquian family 

 whose villages on the mainland and islands of northeastern North 

 Carolina w^ere discovered by the first expedition sent out by Sir 

 "Walter Ealeigh in 1584, were rather different from many found 

 farther north. The sketches of the towns of Pomeiooc and Secota, 

 made by White, who was a member of the second expedition, are 

 preserved in the British Museum. These show the habitations to 

 have been fiat in front and rear, with an arbor-shaped roof merging 

 into the side walls. They are also shown to have been somewhat 

 longer in proportion to their width than were the dome-roofed 

 structures. However, it is not probable that in any locality one form 

 of habitation was used to the exclusion of all others. 



During the years 1899 and 1900 the writer made several trips to 

 northern and central Minnesota, first going northward from Ely, 

 across the international boundary, to visit the large lakes on Hunt- 

 ers Island, later in the year making a short trip to Cass Lake, and the 

 following spring examining the entire shore line of Mille Lac, 

 camping at the Ojibway village of Sagawa' mick on the south shore 

 of that magnificent body of water. Many photographs were made, 

 including some of the various forms of habitation, and of other 

 structures, then erected by the Ojibway, and as these are among the 

 last to stand it is desirable to record their form and appearance. 



On October 5, 1899, we were encamped near the south shore of 

 Basswood Lake, but whether north or south of the international 



1 Cogswell, J. G. The Voyage of Verrazzano. In collections of the New York Hist. 

 Soc. Second series, Vol. I, 1841. 



