SwANTON] miDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNHTED STATES 395 



The ground plan was rectangular, with a door in the middle of one 

 of the long sides and sometimes a door in the middle of the opposite 

 side as well. The size and shape were outlined by means of seven 

 or eight pine uprights, one at each corner, and the others in the 

 middle of the back and at either side of the door or doors. If there 

 was but one door, a single post was set up in the middle of the oppo- 

 site side. The house is said to have faced in any direction, but this 

 is almost certainly a modern innovation. The tops of the uprights 

 all around were connected by means of horizontal poles tied with 

 baksha (bass cord), and poles of the same kind were fastened half 

 way up, except, of course, across the doorways. Just outside of these 

 were placed the wall planks standing on end, and they were woven 

 together and to the horizontals by means of a pair of cords woven 

 in and out from one end to the other. The gable ends above the 

 eaves were closed by means of a number of boards laid horizontally 

 and fastened at the ends and to a single upright pole at the middle. 

 The space over the door was closed with a single horizontally placed 

 board. The boards employed were thick, and sometimes halved logs 

 were used instead. The skeleton of the roof consisted of about eight 

 rafters on a side, including those at the ends. Over these were laid 

 a number of horizontal strips, thirteen in the house my informant 

 had in mind, and over these were laid thin slabs of pinelike shingles, 

 their centers being laid on the horizontal strips at their centers. 

 Nowadays such slabs are nailed in place, but anciently they were 

 fastened by means of slender poles along the upper sides, which 

 were tied to them and to the strips beneath and the rafters at their 

 extremities. Between the rafters inside crosspieces are now added, 

 but this is a modern innovation. In the roof at either end was a 

 smoke-hole (oi'ha), one to let the fresh air in, the other to let the 

 smoke out. The floor was the natural soil. The door was made 

 of a single plank or of two or more fastened side by side and swung 

 on leather hinges, sometimes inward, sometimes outward. 



The later Creek house in Oklahoma was rectangular, the sides 

 being made of split logs, and the interstices filled with clay mixed 

 with grass. In 1819-21 the missionary Hodgson saw some "rude 

 dwellings" among the Lower Creeks "formed of four upright sap- 

 lings, and a rough covering of pine-bark, which they strip from the 

 trees with a neatness and rapidity which we could not imitate" 

 (Hodgson, 1823, p. 264). 



As might have been anticipated, the houses of the Seminole re- 

 sembled those of the Creeks, but, these Indians being scattered about 

 in smaller bodies and moving more frequently, neither their private 

 nor their public structures were as elaborate. Bartram says of them : 



They have neither the Chunky- Yard nor Rotunda, and the Public Square is 

 an imperfect one, having but two or three houses at furtherest . . . Their pri- 



