SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SfOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 389 



[Elsewhere he remarks that these houses were] whitewashed within and with- 

 out, either with decayed oyster-shells, coarse-chalk, or white marly clay ; one or 

 the other of which, each of our Indian nations abound with, be they ever so 

 far distant from the sea-shore: the Indians, as well as the traders, usually, 

 decorate their summer-houses with this favorite white-wash. The former have 

 likewise each a corn-house, fowl-house, and a hot-house, or stove for winter. 

 (Adair, 1775, p. 413.) 



Thus each Chickasaw of consequence owned a group of dwellings, 

 and the number seems to have been carried still further by the 

 Creeks. 



The family hot houses of the Creeks were rectangular and consti- 

 tuted one element in the system of buildings in the possession of each 

 family group (Romans, 1775, p. 96), but the bad-weather ceremonial 

 building owned by the town, the tcokofa or tcokofa-thlako, was al- 

 most identical with the Chickasaw hot house. Hawkins has left us 

 the following account of this : 



[The] Chooc-ofau thiuc-co, the rotunda or assem'bly room, called by the 

 traders, "hot house" ... is near the square, and is constructed after the follow- 

 ing manner: Eight posts are fixed in the ground, forming an octagon of 

 thirty feet diameter. They are twelve feet high, and large enough to support 

 the roof. On these, five or six logs are placed, of a side, drawn in as they 

 rise. On these, long poles or rafters, to suit the height of the building, are 

 laid, the upper ends forming a point, and the lower ends projecting out six 

 feet from the octagon, and resting on posts five feet high, placed in a circle 

 round the octagon, with plates on them, to which the rafters are tied with 

 splits. The rafters are near together, and fastened with splits. These are 

 covered with clay, and that with pine bark ; the wall, six feet from the octagon, 

 is clayed up; they have a small door into a small portico, curved round for 

 five or six feet, then into the house. 



The space between the octagon and the wall, is one entire sopha, where the 

 visitors lie or sit at pleasure. It Is covered with reed, mat or splits. (Hawkins, 

 1848, p. 71.) 



The only differences seem to have been in the greater size of the 

 Creek structure necessitating a main support of eight posts at the 

 center instead of four, no mention of a carved eagle at the top, and 

 the substitution of pine bark for grass as an outer covering. 



The hot house seen by Hitchcock at the great Tukabahchee town 

 near the Canadian River, after the removal of the Creeks to the west 

 of the Mississippi, was still larger : 



The most curious part of the preparation at the Square is at the West 

 angle a few feet from the angle outside — the Round House. This is diflBcult to 

 describe and considerable ingenuity has been employed in its erection. The 

 main structure is supported upon twelve posts or pillars, one end sunk in the 

 ground. They are disposed in a circle about 9 or 10 feet apart, making a space 

 within of about 120 feet circumference in the centre of which, upon the ground 

 is the sacred fire. The roof over this circle is a cone terminating in a point 

 over the fire some 20 odd feet high. The rafters extend down from the apex 

 of the cone beyond the twelve pillars, which are about eight feet high, to within 

 four or five feet of the ground, which space, of four or five feet is enclosed 



