NO. 12 MONACAN TOWNS IN VIRGINIA BUSHNELL 29 



a plain by the river-sicle, the houses join all the one to the other, 

 and altogether make a circle ; the walls are large pieces of timber 

 which are squared, and being sharpened at the lower end, are put 

 down two feet in the ground, and stand about seven feet above the 

 ground. These posts are laid as close as possible the one to the 

 other, and when they are all fixed after this manner, they make a 

 roof with rafters, and cover the house with oak or hickory bark, 

 which they strip off in great flakes, and lay it so closely that no 

 rain can come in. Some Indian houses are covered in a circular 

 manner, which they do by getting long saplings, sticking each end 

 in the ground, and so covering them with bark ; but there are none 

 of the houses in this town so covered. There are three ways for 

 entering into this town or circle of houses, which are passages of 

 about six feet wide, between two of the houses. All the doors are on 

 the inside of the ring, and the ground is very level withinside, which 

 is in common between all the people to divert themselves. There is 

 in the centre of the circle a great stump of a tree ; I asked the reason 

 they left that standing, and they informed me it was for one of their 

 head men to stand upon when he had anything of consequence to 

 relate to them, so that being raised, might the better be heard." Con- 

 tinuing he described briefly the interior of the structures : " Their 

 houses are pretty large, they have no garrets, and no other light than 

 the door, and that which comes from the hole in the top of the house 

 which is to let out the smoke. They make their fires always in the 

 middle of the house ; the chief of their household goods is a pot and 

 some wooden dishes and trays, which they make themselves ; they 

 seldom have any thing to sit upon, but squat upon the ground ; they 

 have small divisions in their houses to sleep in, which they make of 

 mats made of bullrushes ; they have bedsteads, raised about two feet 

 fromi the ground, upon which they lay bear and deer skins, and all 

 the covering they have is a blanket. These people have no sort of 

 tame creatures, but live entirely upon, their hunting and the corn 

 which their wives cultivate. They live as lazily and miserably as any 

 people in the world. 



" Between the town and the river, upon the river side, there arc 

 several little huts built with wattles, in the form of an oven, with 

 a small door in one end of it ; these wattles are plaistered without 

 side very closely with clay, they are big enough to hold a man, and are 

 called sweating-houses. When they have any sickness, they get ten 

 or twelve pebble stones which they heat in the fire, and when they 

 are red-hot they carry them into these huts, and the sick man or 

 woman goes in naked, only a blanket with him, and they shut the 



