82 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BULL. 69 
A typical house standing in the Everglades in the year 1880 (pl. 14, 
b), measuring about 16 feet in length and 9 feet in width, was thus 
described: 
‘‘Tt is actually but a platform elevated about three feet from the > 
ground and covered with a palmetto thatched roof, the roof being 
not more than 12 feet above the ground at the ridge pole or 7 at the 
eaves. Eight upright palmetto logs, unsplit and undressed, support 
the roof. Many rafters sustain the palmetto thatching. The plat- 
form is composed of split palmetto logs lying transversely, flat sides 
up, upon beams which extend the length of the building and are 
lashed to the uprights by palmetto ropes, thongs, or trader’s ropes. 
This platform is peculiar, in that it fills the interior of the building 
like afloor and serves to furnish the family with a dry sitting or lying 
down place when, as often happens, the whole region is under water. 
The thatching of the roof is quite a work of art: inside, the regularity 
and compactness of the laying of the leaves display much skill and 
taste on the part of the builder; outside—with the outer layers 
there seems to have been less care taken than with those within— 
the mass of leaves of which the roof is composed is held in place and 
made firm by heavy logs, which, bound together in pairs, are laid 
upon it astride the ridge.” (MacCauley, (1), p. 500.) 
The structure just described, open on all sides and without a 
partition, was one of three similar buildings, which stood ‘‘at three 
corners of an oblong clearing,” about 40 by 30 feet in extent. In one 
of the three houses the platform was only half the size of the others, 
the ground thus left uncovered being used as a hearth, although in 
dry weather, when it was not necessary to remain under shelter, 
the fire was usually made in the open space po or rather 
surrounded by the three buildings. 
Like the great; majority of the native tribes of eastern United 
States, these, living at the farthest point southward, had a custom | 
of erecting a temporary lodge or shelter when away from their perma- 
nent settlements. These evidently differed in form. Some resem- 
bled “‘wall tents and others like single-roofed sheds,” but all appear to 
have been formed of a framework covered with palmetto. A sketch of 
a shelter encountered by MacCauley at Horse Creek is reproduced in 
plate 14, a. A raised platform near the lodge served as a place for 
depositing food, utensils, and other possessions of the people. 
In the preceding reference to the placing of three sepatate buildings 
“‘at three corners of an oblong clearing,” it is interesting to trace 
the custom of the Seminole back through several generations to their 
old homes on the Chattahoochee. Three or four separate structures 
were there grouped about a small open space, each group being the 
home of a family, but the houses were of a more substantial nature 
and furnished far more protection to the occupants, nevertheless the 
