414 BUREAU OP AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bdll. 137 



Of Pomeioc, he states : 



Their dwellinges are builded with certaine potes fastened together, and 

 couered with matts which they turne op as high as they thinke good, and see 

 receue in the lighte and other. (Hariot, 1893, p. 36, pi. 19.) 



Barlowe and his companions were taken into a 5-room house on 

 Roanoke Island, which may have been a longhouse with mat partitions 

 (Burrage, 1906, p. 234) . The remarks of the explorers might lead one 

 to think, however, that it was a house belonging to one family because 

 in an outer room their clothing was removed, washed, and dried, and 

 their feet washed in warm water, and afterward they were taken into 

 an inner chamber and food was served to them there as if it were a 

 sort of dining room. Probably this dwelling was an extra large one 

 intended for the entertainment of important visitors. In these houses 

 the material of which the mats are made is no longer cane but rushes. 



The common house of the Virginia Algonquians was like those de- 

 scribed by Hariot, as shown by the following quotations : 



Spelman : 



Ther Biuldinge are made like an ouen with a litell hole to cum in at But 

 more spatius with in hauinge a hole in the midest of y® house for smoke to 

 goe out at. The Kinges houses are both broader and longer then y® rest 

 hauinge many darke windinges and turnings before any cum wher the Kinge 

 is, but in that time when they goe a Huutinge y* weomen goes to a place 

 apoynted before, to build houses for ther husbands to lie in att night carienge 

 matts with them to couer ther houses with all, and as the men goes furthur a 

 huntinge the weomen goes before to make houses, always carrienge ther mattes 

 with them. (Spelman in Smith, Arber ed., 1884, pp. cvi-cvii.) 



Smith : 



Their houses are built like our Arbors of small young springs bowed and 

 tyed, and so close covered with mats or the barkes of trees very handsomely, 

 that notwithstanding either winde raiue or weather, they are as warme as 

 stooves, but very smoaky, yet at the toppe of the house there is a hole made 

 for the smoake to goe into right over the fire. (Smith, Tyler ed., 1907, p. 100.) 



Strachey ; 



As for their bowses, who knoweth one of them knoweth them all, even the 

 chief kyng's house yt selfe, for they be all alike builded one to the other. 

 They are like garden arbours, at best like our sheppards' cottages, made yet 

 handsomely enough, though without strength or gaynes(s), of such yong 

 plants as they can pluck up, bow, and make the greene toppes meete togither, 

 in fashion of a round roofe, which they thatch with matts throwne over. The 

 walles are made of barkes of trees, but then those be principall bowses, for so 

 many barkes which goe to the making up of a howse are long tyke of purchasing. 

 In the midst of the howse there is a louer [chimney or vent], out of which the 

 smoake issueth, the fier being kept right under. Every house comonly hath 

 two dores, one before and a posterne. The doores bo hung with matts, never 

 locked nor bolted, but only those matts be to turne upp, or lett fall at pleas- 

 ure ; and their bowses are so comonly placed under covert of trees, that the vio- 

 lence of fowle weather, snowe, or raine, cannot assalt them, nor the sun in 



