400 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Boll. 137 



been observed in the roof support which shows a rather clever adaptation of 

 the material at hand to suit the occasion. In such a case standing trees take the 

 place of sunken posts, and forked posts with the beams resting in the crotch are 

 leaned against them. 



. . . The general ground plan of these camp shelters is square . . . They 

 usually stand east of the entrance to the tent. In the center of the ground 

 space blankets, skins and other materials to make comfort are strewn, and 

 here the people eat, lounge and sleep. In one corner is a square storage scaf- 

 fold or shelf elevated about five feet above the ground. This is floored with 

 straight sticks resting upon cross pieces which in turn are supported by uprights 

 in the floor. On this scaffold is a heterogeneous pile of household utensils and 

 property. Ball sticks, weapons, baskets, clothing, harness, blankets and in fact 

 nearly everything not in immediate use is all packed away here out of reach of 

 dogs and children. Out from under the roof to one side is the fireplace. [Accom- 

 panied by three illustrations in the original.] (Speck, 1909, pp. 39-40.) 



By 1854 the common Chickasaw house had taken on a two-part type 

 common in certain sections of Oklahoma down to the present day. 

 W. B. Parker, who accompanied Capt. R. B. Marcy in his expedition 

 through the Indian country in the summer and fall of 1854, thus de- 

 scribes it : 



The style of building among this people is peculiar ; two square pens are put 

 up with logs, and roofed or thatched. The space between the pens is covered 

 in and serves for eating place and despository of harness, saddles and bridles, 

 &c. A door is cut in each pen, facing the passage. They have no windows the 

 doors admitting all the light used. This style is called tico pens and a passage 

 and is, in fact, only a shelter for the family from bad weather, for of furniture 

 they have but little, and that of the rudest and most uncomfortable kind. 

 These buildings are stuck almost invariably upon the road ; no neat door yard, 

 with a substantial fence and neat gate encloses them; no flower or vegetable 

 garden is seen, but the ornamental figure of a half-starved dog, grunts lazily 

 on one side and a pack of miserable curs lounge on the other, the whole pre- 

 senting an untidy picture of squalid discomfort, which even its temporary ap- 

 pearance cannot deceive. (Quoted in Foreman, 1934, p. 142.) 



But this was not the best type of house nor was it quite fair for a 

 representative of the race which had uprooted the tribe unceremoni- 

 ously from their homes and disorganized their home lives to be so cen- 

 sorious regarding a condition for which his people had been largely 

 responsible. There were white families of the time whose houses 

 probably rated no higher. 



Romans (1775, p. 83) mentions hot houses among the Choctaw as 

 well-known structures and he leads us to infer that they were made 

 precisely like those of the Chickasaw, but it is curious that most other 

 writers are silent regarding them. This is particularly surprising 

 in the case of the anonymous French writer so often referred to. The 

 omission seems, however, to be rectified by a traveler named Mease 

 who visited the Choctaw town of Imoklasha in 1770-71 and thus 

 describes the house of an Indian named Astolabe : 



