SwANTON] INiDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNHTE'D STATES 407 



Ucita, in Tampa Bay, where De Soto landed, had both a chief's house 

 and a temple, situated at opposite ends of the town, an arrangement 

 which suggests that this town may have received influences from the 

 north. (Robertson, 1933, p. 33; Swanton, 1922, p. 353.) Le Moyne 

 says that the great rectangular house (pi. 57) was "partly under- 

 ground in consequence of the sun's heat" (Le Moyne, 1875, p. 12 

 (ill.) ; Swanton, 1922, p. 352) ; and although his remarks are general, 

 it is this house which Spark seems to be describing in the following 

 words : 



Their houses are not many together, for in one house an hundred of them do 

 lodge ; they being made much like a great barne, and in strength not inferiour to 

 ours, for they haue stanchions and rafters of whole trees, and are covered with 

 palmito-leaues, hauing no place diuided, but one small roome for their king and 

 queene. (Hakluyt, 1847-89, vol. 3, p. 613 ; Swanton, 1922, p. 353.) 



This probably means that a retiring room was cut off from the town 

 house for the particular use of the head chief and his family. 



In later times the council houses seem to have been round, as in- 

 dicated in the following description by Calderon : 



Each village has a council house called the great hujio, constructed of wood 

 and covered with straw, round, and with a very large opening in the top. 

 Most of them can accommodate from 2,000 to 3,000 persons. They are 

 furnished all around the interior with niches called harlacdas, which serve 

 as beds and as seats for the caciques and chiefs, and as lodgings for soldiers 

 and transients. Dances and festivals are held in them around a great fire in 

 the center. (Calder6n, 1936, p. 13.) 



Most of the houses of the common people were undoubtedly cir- 

 cular and so Le Moyne figures most of those he illustrates, but in his 

 picture of a stockaded settlement are some square houses and two of 

 oval pattern like many figured by White as observed in North Caro- 

 lina (pi. 57). Kibault says that most of the houses seen by him at 

 the mouth of St. Marys Eiver were "made of wood fitly and closely 

 set up, and covered with reeds, after the fashion of a pavilion" 

 (French, 1869, p. 180; Swanton, 1922, p. 352). And so Le Challeux: 



Their dwellings are of a round shape and in style almost like the pigeon 

 houses of this country, the foundation and main structure being of great trees, 

 covered over with palmetto leaves, and not fearing either wind or tempest. 

 (Gaifarel, 1875, p. 461; Swanton, 1922, p. 352.) 



Bishop Calderon (1936, p. 12) describes the private house as "a 

 hut made in round form, of straw, without a window and with a 

 door a vara (2.8 feet) high and half a vara (1.4 feet) wide." The 

 size of the door certainly does not seem to have been exaggerated. 



Le Moyne also tells us that the common houses were roofed with 

 palmetto. From no less than three distinct sources we learn that 

 the type of dwelling, at least so far as the roof was concerned, 

 changed in what is now southern Georgia. Thus the houses seen by 



