MORGAN. | KUTCHIN LODGE. 109 
A brief reference may be made to the skin lodge of the Kitchin or 
Louchoux of the Yukon and Peel Rivers. 
This simple structure, the ground plan and elevation of which were 
taken from the Smithsonian Report,’ is thus described by Mr. Strachan 
Fic. 5.—Kiitchin Lodge. 
Jones: “ Deer-skins are dressed with the hair on, and sewed together, form- 
ing two large rolls, which are stretched over a frame of bent poles. The 
lodge is nearly elliptical, about twelve or thirteen feet in diameter and six 
feet high, very similar to a tea-cup turned over. The door is about four 
feet high, and is simply a deer-skin fastened above and hanging down. ‘The 
hole to allow the smoke to escape is about four feet in diameter. Snow is 
heaped up outside the edges of the lodge and pine brush spread on the 
eround inside, the snow having been previously shoveled off with snow- 
shoes. The fire is made in the middle of the lodge, and one or more fami- 
lies, as the case may be, live on each side of the fire, every one having his 
or her particular place.”* He further remarks that “they have no pottery,” 
and that they boil water “by means of stones heated red hot and thrown 
into the kettle.”* The principal fact to be noticed is that the lodge is com- 
parted into stalls open on the central space, in the midst of which is the 
fire-pit, evidently for the accommodation of more families than one. This 
arrangement of the interior will reappear in numerous other cases. The 
Kitchin must be classed as savages, although near the close of that condi- 
tion. 
‘Report for 1866, p. 321. 21b., p. 322. 8Ib., p. 321. 
