500 SEMINOLE INDIANS OF FLORIDA. 
Mountin a pile of logs, “Billy” tried with it to summon “Charlie,” 
thinking he might be somewhere near. Meanwhile I continued my 
search. I noticed some terrapin shells lying on a platform in one of the 
houses, the breast shell pierced with two hoies. ‘ Wear them at Green 
Corn Dance,” said “ Billy.” I caught sight of some dressed buckskins 
lying on a rafter of a house, and an oJd fashioned rifle, with powder horn 
and shot flask. I also saw a hoe; adeep iron pot; a mortar, made from 
a live oak (?) log, probably fifteen inches in diameter and twenty-four in 
height, and beside it a pestle, made from mastic wood, perhaps four feet 
and a half in length. 
A bag of corn hung from a rafter, and near it a sack of clothing, 
which I did not examine. <A skirt, gayly ornamented, hung there also. 
There were several basketware sieves, evidently home made, and vari- 
ous bottles lying around the place. I did not search among the things 
laid away on the rafters under the roof. A sow, with several pigs, lay 
contentedly under the platform of one of the houses. And near by, 
in the saw-grass, was moored a cypress “dug-out,” about fifteen feet 
long, pointed at bow and stern. 
Dwellings throughout the Seminole district are practically uniform 
in construction. With but slight variations, the accompanying sketch 
of I-ful-lo-ha-teo’s main dwelling shows what style of architecture pre- 
vails in the Florida Everglades. (PI. XIX.) 
This house is approximately 16 by 9 feet in ground measurement, 
made almost altogether, if not wholly, of materials taken from the 
palmetto tree. It 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 
theeaves. Eight upright palmetto logs, unsplit and undressed, support 
the roof. Many rafters sustain the palmetto thatching. The platform 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 up- 
rights by palmetto ropes, thongs, or trader’s ropes. This platform is pe- 
culiar, in that it fills the interior of the building like a floor 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. The covering is, I 
was informed, water tight and durable and will resist even a violent 
wind. Only hurricanes ean tear it off, and these are so infrequent in 
Southern Florida that no attempt is made to provide against them. 
The Seminole’s house is open on all sides and without rooms. It is, 
in fact, only a covered platform. The single equivalent for a room in it 
