MINDELEFF] MEDICINE HUTS 499 
Rude and primitive as these structures seem, a certain amount of 
knowledge and experience is necessary to build them. This has been 
discovered at various times by whites who have attempted to build 
hogans and failed. An instance occurred not long ago where a trader, 
finding it necessary to build some kind of a travelers’ house, where 
Indians who came in to trade late in the evening or on Sunday could 
spend the night, decided to build a regular hogan. He employed 
several Navaho to do the work under his own supervision. The 
result was a failure, for, either on account of too much slope to the 
sides or for other reasons, the hogan does not remain in good order, 
and constant work on it is necessary to maintain it in a habitable con- 
dition. 
Fie. 239—Shelter with partly closed front 
SWEAT HOUSES 
All over the reservation there are hundreds of little structures which 
are miniature models, as it were, of the hogans, but they lack the pro- 
jecting doorway. These little huts, scarcely as high as a man’s hip, 
look like children’s playhouses, but they occupy an important place 
both in the elaborate religious ceremonies and in the daily life of the 
Navaho. ‘They are the sweat houses, called in the Navaho language 
¢é‘tee, a term probably derived from qd¢o‘tsil, “sweat,” and inginil‘tce, 
the manner in which fire is prepared for heating the stones placed in it 
when it is used. The structure is designed to hold only one person at 
atime, and he must crawl in and squat on his heels with his knees 
drawn up to his chin. 
In the construction of these little huts a frame is made of three 
boughs with forked ends, and these have the same names as the corre- 
