HOUSES AND HOUSE-BUILDING 39 



"wick-i-up" of Apache or Have-su-pai, and suggests those described 

 in Fray Crespi's Viage, seen on the Los Angeles coast, round and dome- 

 shaped like half an orange with a smoke hole in the center of the roof. 1 



The possible outlines of the old dwellings at Indian Wells are still 

 preserved by the short stumps of posts sticking above the sand. These 

 houses seem to have been made by setting half a dozen posts close 

 together in a rectangle or square and leaning against these all around 

 side-poles and brush, making a circular "hogan." 



These facts might suggest that the round structures still in use 

 among the Coahuillas are the only abodes of native origin; the jacal 

 being due to white influence and suggestion. This would be, however, 

 a very hasty generalization. The principles of ridgepole, sloping roof, 

 and upright sides were, with little doubt, derived from the housebuild- 

 ing of the Colorado River Indians, the Mojaves, Yumas, and Coco- 

 pahs. The patterns in the Cabeson and on the Colorado are very 

 similar. The lower sides and more sloping roofs of the mountains 

 were probably developed under the necessity of shedding the rain and 

 snow. 



The houses of the Coahuillan tribes on the coast valleys, unaffected 

 by the Colorado tribes, seem to have been of a possibly wholly differ- 

 ent type. Mr. Reid says: "Their huts were made of sticks, covered 

 in around with flag mats worked or plaited, and each village contained 

 from 500 to 1,500 huts." 2 



21. The feast booths or ramadas constructed in every village merit 

 a word of description. When intended for local purposes only they 

 are simply large, square, flat-topped ramadas, usually enclosed on only 

 three sides. Such booths exist in many villages for dances by the 

 inhabitants of the rancherias at all times of the year. They will be 

 used also for tribal councils, for celebrations of mass at the rare visita- 

 tions of the priest, and for other public purposes. When, however, a 

 great annual feast takes place, like that of the Fiesta of San Luis in 

 the Coahuilla mountains, every August, to which are invited not only 

 Coahuillas from every village, but also Indians of other tribes, espe- 

 cially the Diegenos, the ramada is quite another affair. Here a line of 

 connected booths, two rooms deep, is built about the sides of a great 

 court, 200 by 300 feet in area, a structure capable of lodging sev- 

 eral hundred persons. It is built of poles and willow boughs and 



i " La rancheria se compone de viente casas hechas de zacate de forma esferica a modo de uno media 

 naranja con su respiradero en lo alto por donde les entra la luz y tiene salida el humo." (In Doc. His. 

 Mex., series iv, torn, vi, p. 314; quoted by BANCROFT, Vol. I, p. 404, note.) 



2 "The Indians of Los Angeles County," California Farmer, Vol. XIV, p. 146. 



