SWANTON] INiDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 429 



mentions a door made of palmetto to close the entrance of a Guale 

 house (Garcia, 1902, p. 195). Probably the kind described by Adair 

 was typical : 



The Indians always make their doors of poplar, because the timber is large, 

 and very light when seasoned, as well as easy to be hewed ; they cut the tree 

 to a proper length, and split it with a maul and hard wooden wedges, when 

 they have indented it a little, in convenient places with their small hatchets. 

 They often make a door of one plank in breadth, but, when it requires two 

 planks, they fix two or three cross bars to the inner side, at a proper distance, 

 and bore each of them with a piece of an old gun barrel, heated and battered 

 for the purpose, and sew them together with straps of a shaved and wet buffalo 

 hide, which tightens as it dries, and it is almost as strong as if it were done 

 with long nails, riveted in the usual manner. (Adair, 1775, p. 450.) 



However, the door of the Acolapissa temple figured by De Batz 

 seems to be of a construction to which Elvas' term "grating" might 

 be applied. This is stiffened by four crosspieces to which it is tied 

 at intervals, apparently with withes, and withes also seem to have 

 been used as hinges (Bushnell, 1927, pi. 1). (See pi. 62.) The Ala- 

 bama house door of later times also swung on side hinges, and some- 

 times opened inward, sometimes outward. It was made either of a 

 single plank or two or more fastened together. 



Du Pratz gives us one truly aboriginal style of door in his de- 

 scription of the entrances of sacred buildings : 



Many of these nations have only very simple temples, which one would often 

 take for private cabins. However, when one comes to know, he distinguishes 

 them by means of two wooden posts at the door made like boundary posts 

 with a human head, which hold the swinging door with a piece of wood planted 

 in the earth at each end, so that the children may not be able to open the 

 door and go into the temple to play. In this way the door can be opened only 

 by raising it above these posts, which are at least three feet long, and it re- 

 quires a strong man to lift it. It is the small nations which have these tem- 

 ples which one would confound with private dwellings. The latter have in- 

 deed posts and a similar door, but the posts are smooth, and these doors open 

 sideways, because there is no piece of wood at the end. A woman or a child 

 is able to open one of these doors from the outside or inside, and at night it is 

 closed and fastened on the inside to keep the dogs from entering. (Le Page du 

 Pratz, 1758, vol. 3, pp. 21-23; Swanton, 1911, p. 167.) 



We must suppose that these doors were hung by means of one short 

 cord at the middle of the top, or by two or three longer ones, and that 

 close to the outer margin of each two stakes were planted in the ground 

 rising 3 feet out of it. Therefore the door would ordinarily be opened 

 by shoving it, or swinging it to one side. In the case of a temple, 

 however, a stake at each end, necessarily of the same height as the 

 others, or thereabouts, prevented anyone from opening it in the usual 

 manner. He must lift the door bodily and then push it over the 

 stakes. This, of course, necessitated rather long cords at the top. 



All doorways are described as very small, especially those of the 



