60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 69 
The Cherokee town of Cowe ( Kawi’ yi, Mooney) stood on the banks 
of the Little Tennessee, about the mouth of Cowee Creek, in the 
present Macon County, North Carolina, among the beautiful hills 
and valleys of the southern Alleghenies (pl. 10, a). When visited 
by Bartram in the spring of 1776, the town consisted of about 
100 dwellings, and here was a town house large enough to allow 
several hundred persons to gather within. This occupied the summit 
of an artificial mound some 20 feet in height. The building rose 
30 feet higher, making the peak of the roof 50 feet above the sur- 
rounding area. Bartram’s description of this structure is of much 
interest (op. cit., pp. 366-367): 
“They first fix in the ground a circular range of posts or trunks of 
trees, about six feet high, at equal distances, which are notched at 
top, to receive into them from one to another, a range of beams or 
wall plates; within this is another circvlar order of very large and 
strong pillars, above twelve feet high, notched im like manner at 
top, to receive another range of wall plates; and within this is yet 
another or third range of stronger and higher pillars, but few in 
number, standing at a greater distance from each other; and lastly, 
in the centre stands a very strong pillar, which forms the pinnacle 
of the building, and to which the rafters are strengthened and bound 
together by cross beams and laths, which sustain the roof or covering, 
which is a layer of bark neatly placed, and tight enough to exclude 
the rain, and sometimes they cast a thin superficies of earth over all. 
There is but one large door, which serves at the same time to admit 
light from without and the smoke to escape when a fire is kindled; 
but as there is but a small fire kept, sufficient to give light at night, 
and that fed with dry small sound wood divested of its bark, there 
is but little smoke. All around the inside of the building, betwixt 
the second range of pillars and the wall, is a range of cabins or sophas, 
consisting of two or three steps, one above or behind the other, in 
theatrical order, where the assembly sit or lean down; these sophas 
are covered with mats or carpets, very curiously made of thin splints 
of Ash or Oak, woven or platted together; near the great pillar in 
the centre the fire is kindled for light, near which the musicians seat 
themselves, and round about this the performers exhibit their dances 
and other sem at pee festivals, which happen almost every might 
throughout the year.’ 
_ The night of Bartram’s visit the people had gathered in the town 
house at Cowe to ‘“‘rehearse the ball-play dance.’’ The town was to 
play against another on the next day. . 
The town house at Tellico, a Cherokee village in the present Mon- 
roe County, Tenn., stood on the summit of a mound 12 feet in height, 
which was in the midst of the old fields, near a bend of the Little 
Tennessee, not far from Cowe. The houses were falling apart, and 
