MORGAN ] HOUSES OF THE VIRGINIA INDIANS. 117 
by Captain John Smith, were precisely like those of Pomeiock and Secotan. 
A part of the interior of the house in which Smith was received by Pow- 
hatan as a prisoner is engraved upon his map of Virginia, of which the 
Wf <i f 
6 
“Their houses are |X 
\ 
following is a copy: 
aN Of 
built,” Smith remarks, “like 
our arbors, of small young 
sprigs, bowed and tied, and 
so close covered with mats, 
or the bark of trees, very 
handsomely, that notwith- 
standing either wind, rain, 
or weather, they are as 
warm as stoves, but very 
smoky ; yet, at the top of 
the house there is a hole 
made for the smoke to 20 
into right over the fire. 
Against the fire they lie on 
little hurdles of reeds cov- 
ered with a mat, borne from 
POWHATAN 
; Heid this flate & Spoon wher Capt: Sinith 
by a hurdle of wood. On EE EE ISTE 
these, round about the house, 4007 
the ground a foot or more 
he : : Fic. 11.—Interior of House of Virginia Indians. 
they lie, heads and points, 
one by the other against the fire, some covered with mats, some with skins, 
and some stark naked lie on the ground, from six to twenty in a house.”! 
The engraving is probably an improvement upon the original house in 
the symmetry of the structure, but it is doubtless a truthful representation 
of its mechanism. It seems likely that a double set of upright poles were 
used, one upon the outside and one on the inside, between which the mat- 
tings of canes or willows were secured, as the houses at Pomeiock and Seco- 
tan are ribbed externally at intervals of about eight feet, showing four, five, 
‘ History of Virginia, i, 130. 
