494 NAVAHO HOUSES [BTH. ANN. 17 
SUMMER HUTS OR SHELTERS 
The rules which govern the building of a regular hogan or winter 
house, although clearly defined and closely adhered to, do not apply to 
the summer huts or shelters. These outnumber the former and are 
found everywhere on the reservation, but they are most abundant in 
the mountain regions and in those places where horticultural opera- 
tions can be carried on. 
These structures are of all kinds and of all degrees of finish, 
although certain well-defined types, ancient in their origin, are still 
closely adhered to when the conditions permit. But under other cir- 
cumstances the rudest and most primitive shelters are constructed, 
some of them certainly not so high in the scale of construction as an 
ordinary bird’s nest. There is a certain interest that attaches to these 
rude attempts, as they exhibit the working of the human mind prac- 
tically untrammeled by precedent. 
Perhaps the most primitive and simple shelter the Navaho builds is a 
circle or part-circle of green boughs, generally pine or cedar. Half an 
hour of work by two men with axes is all that is required to erect one 
of these. A site having been selected, a tree is felled on the windward 
side, and the branches trimmed from it are piled up to a height of 4 or 
5 feet on three sides of a cirele 15 or 20 feet in diameter. A fire is 
built in the center and the natives dispose themselves around it. 
Blankets are thrown over outstanding branches here and there, afford- 
ing an abundance of shade in the hot summer days when even a little 
shade is agreeable. Rude as this shelter is, it is regarded by the 
Navaho as sufficient when no better is available. During the recent 
construction of some irrigating ditches on the reservation, when from 
50 to 100 men were employed at one time, this form of shelter was the 
only one used, although in several instances the work was carried on 
in one place for five or six weeks. Shelters of this kind, however, are 
possible only in a wooded region, and are built only to meet an emer- 
gency, aS when a man is away from home and there are no hogans in 
the vicinity where he can stop. j 
Another form, scarcely less rude, is sometimes found in localities 
temporarily occupied for grazing or for horticulture. It consists of a 
cirele of small branches, sometimes of mere twigs, with the butts stuck 
into the ground, and not over 24 or 3 feet high. The circle is broken 
by a narrow entrance way on one side. This form of shelter, hardly as 
high as a man’s waist, does little more than mark the place where a 
family have thrown down their blankets and other belongings, but it 
may afford some protection against drifting sand. Shelters of this 
type are occupied several months at a time. They are often seen on 
the sandy bottom lands of Canyon Chelly and in other regions of like 
‘character, and the same sites are sometimes occupied several years in 
succession. 
