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THE EVOLUTION OF HOUSE-BUILDING AMONG THE NAVAJO 
INDIANS. 
BY 
R. W. SHuUFELDT, M. D. 
(With plates xLI-xLilI.) 
From November, 1884, until the early spring of 1889 the writer lived 
at Fort Wingate, a military station in northwestern New Mexico. Dur- 
ing the earlier part of this period there was always to be found a floating 
population of Navajos living on the outskirts of the fort. Including 
men, women, and children, these varied in number from twenty to a hun- 
dred or more, depending upon the time of the year. <A few of them, 
however, remained the year round, and these, as well as the others, 
furnished ample material for the ethnological study of this interesting 
tribe. Accounts of many of their simple industries, of their arts and 
craniology have already been published by the writer, and it is now 
intended to give the result of my studies concerning their methods of 
architecture, and the influence which civilization has had upon the 
mind of these Indians—a contact which has led them to improve their 
plans of house-building, and has had the effect of bringing about an 
evolution of the same. 
During the early part of the summer of 1885 the Indians who remained 
all the year round in the neighborhood of Fort Wingate took up their » 
abode on the summit of a barren, rounded hill, situated near the officers’ 
quarters. Here I watched them with increasing interest, as they con- 
structed their first permanent dwellings in this part of the country. 
Men and women entered upon this labor, though the men did the heay- 
ier part of the work. 
Having selected a site, more or less circular with a diameter some- 
thing like 15 to 20 feet, they would clear it of all stone and rubbish, and 
often to some extent excavate it, or else improve a natural excavation 
which existed. Next some twenty or thirty logs, usually of pine, are 
brought, which vary in size from one as big as a bean pole to a piece of 
timber averaging 8 or 9 inches in diameter. Often these are gathered 
in the forest, but occasionally tie Indians cut them down, using some 
old condemned ax they have found in the refuse of the post. Branches 
are also brought, and a thick, clayish mud is mixed elcse by the near- 
est running stream or spring of water. All being ready, several of the 
builders erect a tripod, composed of some of the stouter pieces of timber, 
Proceedings National Museum, Vol. X V—No. 902. 
279 
