910 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
The restoration, Fig. 47, was drawn by my friend James G. Cutler, esq., 
of Rochester, architect, in accordance with the foregoing suggestions. It 
shows not only the feasibility of occupying these embankments with long 
houses, but also that each pueblo was designed by the Mound-Builders to be a 
fortress, able to resist assault with the appliances of Indian warfare. From 
the defensive character of the great houses of the Village Indian in 
general, this feature might have been expected to appear in the houses of 
the Mound-Builders. 
In this restoration the houses are nearly triangular and of simple con- 
struction. Indians much ruder than they are supposed to have been, as 
the Minnitarees and Mandans, walled their houses with slabs of wood stand- 
ing on a slope, and roofed them at a lower angle, covering both the sloping 
external walls and the roof with a “concrete of tough clay and gravel,” a foot 
or more thick. Long triangular houses of the width of the summit of these 
embankments, with their doorways opening upon the square, and with the 
interior comparted in the form of stalls upon each side of a central passage 
way, would realize, with the inclosed court, some of the features and nearly 
all the advantages of the New Mexican pueblo houses. Occupying to the 
edge of the embankments, these of the Mound-Builders could not be suc- 
cessfully assailed from without either by Indian weapons or by fire; and 
within, their apartments would be as secure and capacious as those of the 
Village Indians in general at the period of their discovery. The inclosed 
court, which is of unusual size, is one of the remarkable features of the 
plan. It afforded a protected place for the villagers and a place of recrea- 
tion for their children, as well as room for their drying-scaffolds, of which 
Mr. Cutler has introduced a number of the Minnitaree and Mandan model, 
and for gardens if they chose to use a part of the area for that purpose. 
They would also require room for a large accumulation of fuel for winter 
use. The only assailable points are the gateways, of which the embank- 
ments show seven. These undoubtedly were protected by rows of round 
timber set in the ground, and passing each other in such a manner as to 
leave a narrow opening, with a mound back of each, upon which archers 
could stand and shoot their arrows over the heads of those between them 
