SWANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN" UNITED STATES 421 



MATERIALS USED IN BUILDING 



Adair indicates that the favorite wood out of which Chickasaw 

 house frames were constructed was pine but that, at least in the 

 summer house, locust and sassafras might be substituted if pine was 

 not available. Pine was also a favorite material for the main struc- 

 ture in Carolina houses and is mentioned by Oviedo and San Miguel 

 in their descriptions of the Guale houses. Hickory seems to have 

 been used mainly on the lower Mississippi, and Lawson speaks of 

 hickory, cedar, "or any other wood that would bend" as in use by 

 the Siouan tribes as well as pine. Palmetto appears in the modem 

 Seminole houses of south Florida, probably for lack of anything 

 else suitable. 



The backing for the wattle walls and roof was made of cane by 

 the Natchez, while the Chickasaw employed in their summer houses 

 withes of the white oak or hickory over which were long winter 

 canes in bundles of three, the eave boards being of poplar because 

 it is soft. 



The clay with which houses were plastered was mixed with grass, 

 as by the Chickasaw, or with Spanish moss, the latter particularly 

 along the lower Mississippi as high up as the Yazoo. 



Over its clay roof the Chickasaw hot house had a grass thatch, and 

 the common houses of the Natchez were covered in the same way 

 except that there was a layer of cane mats underneath. As we pro- 

 ceed westward the grass thatch becomes more prominent, being ap- 

 parently the main roofing material in all Caddo houses except a 

 few on Eed River and identical with the main roofing of the Wichita 

 grass house. 



In the Creek town houses pine bark took the place of grass. Pine 

 bark was used also as a covering for some of the common houses and 

 was similarly employed by the Choctaw and Siouan tribes, though 

 Lawson tells us that pine bark was the poorest sort, and that the 

 Indians of his acquaintance used cypress bark or bark of the red 

 or white cedar. Cedar is not mentioned by anyone else, but cypress 

 bark seems to have been the favorite and it makes its appearance as 

 coverings of houses among the Creeks, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Semi- 

 nole, and the Indians of the Yazoo, besides the Siouans. Among 

 the Chickasaw, Creeks, and Cherokee the bark was laid directly over 

 split shingles, also of cypress, if that were to be had. The houses in 

 the town at Fort Christanna were covered with bark taken from the 

 oak or hickory tree (Fontaine in Maury, 1907). Catesby alone in- 

 cludes among the tree barks thus employed that of the sweetgum. 



Toward the south, mats or palmetto leaves took the place of bark. 

 In the Siouan and Algonquian countries we hear of rush mats; far- 

 ther south the universal mat material was cane, and cane mats were 



