Ras ca 
tor PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 281 
structure standing so immediately betwixt what these Indians first 
erected as a house and that which still remains to be described. 
There are some interesting figures standing about the doorway of 
the house shown in the second plate. The man with his hand resting 
upon his left hip is ‘* Navajo Jake,” the celebrated silversmith of the 
tribe, whose work has formed the basis of one of the reports of the 
United States Bureau of Ethnology. Charlie stands with his carbine 
in the hollow of his arm; he is a well-known Government Navajo scout. 
The man with the blanket over his shoulders is an old chief, long since 
retired; the others are also Navajos. The woman with the baby in the 
cradle is the subject of one of the illustrations to a paper which has re- 
cently been accepted for publication by the Popular Science Monthly, 
of New York. 
Near the house we have just described the Navajos built another 
some time during the spring of 1888, and it showed in its every detail a 
marked advance in house-building. It had but one room, to be sure, 
but it would accommodate a family comfortably, living as these people 
are accustomed to do indoors. All its sides were vertical and built 
regularly of heavy pieces of fine timber, the interstices among them being 
carefully sealed with a generous supply of mud plaster. The roof had 
a moderate pitch to it, and was built of boards nailed on to cross 
rafters, the whole being heavily covered over with mud. (PI. XLm.) 
Small strips of board were used in other parts, as over the door and 
elsewhere, while some heavy pieces of timber supported the structure 
on the outside as struts. Then the door itself was a real door on 
hinges which they had obtained somewhere and hung with no little in- 
genuity. They had also secured an old condemned stove with its joints 
of pipe from the fort, and had set it up quite comfortable inside. 
The floor was of earth, but level, hard, and dry, and here and there 
about the interior were evidences of a growing notion of comfort. 
In this picture we have the family fully represented. The man is 
standing with his hand resting upon the door, his wife is seated out- 
side weaving a belt, and at her side is her baby boy, seated upon a 
blanket of her own manufacture. The whole is a seene of marked 
naturalness and great interest, and one that rarely rewards the labors 
of the photographer among these people, who are very averse to hav- 
ing their pictures thus taken, and one must know them well and be 
liked by them before he ean hope to sueceed. It was mouths before 
they became in any way accustomed to my camera. <A group of gam- 
blers never would permit the exposure to be made; they invariably 
rolied themselves up in their blankets, and lay as quiet as so many arma- 
dillos until the enemy had departed. By tact and perseverance, how- 
ever, © great many valuable negatives were procured by the writer, 
which depict all manner of scenes from the daily life of these Indians. 
Nearly all the Government and other buildings at Wingate are built 
of adobe bricks, and these brieks are made in the immediate vicinity of 
the post by the Navajos, who are hired for the purpose. 
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