SwANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 419 



by means of large canes and splints also made of cane. After the cabin has 

 been covered with grass they cover all with cane mats well bound together, and 

 below they make a circle of lianas all the way around the cabin. Then the grass 

 is clipped uniformly, and in this way, however high the wind may be, it can do- 

 nothing against the cabin. These coverings last twenty years without repairing. 

 (Le Page du Pratz, 1758, vol. 2, pp. 172-175 ; S wanton, 1911, pp. 59-60.) 



The houses of the Bayogoula below the Houma, are described as 

 "round" but the walls and roof appear to have been differentiated. 

 There is not enough detail given to enable us to classify their dwellings 

 with accuracy and the same may be said of those of the other small 

 tribes of this region. The Bayogoula houses as well as their temple 

 seem, however, to have had entrance rooms or passageways like those of 

 the Creek and Chicasaw hot houses (Margry, 1875-86, vol. 4, pp. 

 169-172; Swanton, 1911, p. 275). The Acolapissa temple is described 

 as "round" by Penicaut, and the houses in their town on the Mississippi 

 are said to have been "in the shape of a pavilion," which ordinarily 

 means circular, but bare references of this kind give us little satisfac- 

 tion. (Margry, 1875-86, vol. 5, pp. 467-468; French, 1851, p. 177; 

 Swanton, 1911, pp. 282, 283.) Better than any of these are the drawings 

 and descriptions of De Batz (pi. 62). These confirm the circular 

 character of private houses, but the temple was 22 feet by 14. De 

 Batz's sketch of the latter seems to indicate that the ground plan was 

 oval. The three wooden birds on the roof would, however, suggest 

 that this temple may have been made in imitation of that of the 

 Natchez (Bushnell, 1927, pi. 1). Thus it is probable that the small 

 tribes of the Lower Mississippi below the Houma lived in circular 

 dwellings like those on the Yazoo. The only puzzling point is the dif- 

 ference shown in the sketches between the perpendicular walls and the 

 slope of the roof which seems to call for some corresponding differen- 

 tiation in the underlying frame. Nothing of the kind is mentioned 

 by Dumont or any other early writer so far as I am aware. 



Passing to the Caddo and Hasinai Indians, we find types transitional 

 between those of the Mississippi Valley and the Wichita grass house. 

 AJl of the Hasinai houses and most of those of the eastern Caddo were 

 of the Wichita type, but some along the Red River, particularly the 

 temple figured in the sketch which Bolton reproduces, evidently had 

 wattle walls. A typical grass house is thus described by Joutel. He 

 says that some of these were 60 feet in diameter. 



They are round, in the shape of beehives or rather big haystacks, being of the same 

 material except that they are taller ; they are covered with grass from bottom to 

 top. They make the fire in the middle, the smoke escaping above through the 

 grass. . . . They cut down tall trees as big around as the thigh, they plant them 

 erect in a circle and bring the ends together above, after which they lath them 

 and cover them from bottom to top. 



Around the inside was a kind of shelf used for beds raised about 3 feet 

 from the ground and they separated the different beds by means of 



