Spread of English-Speaking Peoples 79 



of the hickory-nuts they made a thick, oily paste, 

 called the hickory milk. 



Each town was built round a square, in which 

 the old men lounged all day long, gossiping and 

 wrangling. Fronting the square, and surrounding 

 it, were the four long, low communal houses, eight 

 feet high, sixteen feet deep, and forty to sixty in 

 length. They were wooden frames, supported on 

 pine posts, with roof-tree and rafters of hickory. 

 Their fronts were open piazzas, their sides were 

 lathed and plastered, sometimes with white marl, 

 sometimes with reddish clay, and they had plank 

 doors and were roofed neatly with cypress bark or 

 clapboards. The eave boards were of soft poplar. 

 The barrier towns, near white or Indian enemies, 

 had log houses, with portholes cut in the walls. 



The communal houses were each divided into 

 three rooms. The House of the Micos, or Chiefs 

 and Headmen, was painted red and fronted the ris- 

 ing sun; it was highest in rank. The Houses of 

 the Warriors and the Beloved Men this last being 

 painted white fronted south and north respect- 

 ively, while the House of the Young People stood 

 opposite that of the Micos. Each room was divided 

 into two terraces; the one in front being covered 

 with red mats, while that in the rear, a kind of 

 raised dais or great couch, was strewn with skins. 

 They contained stools hewed out of poplar logs, and 

 chests made of clapboards sewed together with 

 buffalo thongs. 23 



23 Hawkins, 67. Milfort, 203. Bartram, 386. Adair, 418. 



