PAPAGVERIA 363 



light sticks is used, but ordinarily the aperture remains open. 

 There are no smoke-holes or window openings, and the interiors 

 are begrimed and sooty. Sometimes the framework is made of 

 mesquite posts and stringers, in which case the roof is commonly 

 more flattened, more deeply covered with earth, and, to support 

 the weight, the framework is reinforced by poles, which may be 

 either ribs of the sahuaro (Cereus giganteus) or branches of the 

 okatilla (Fouquiera splendens). ■ Frequently the house is pro- 

 tected from the ravages of cattle and horses by an armature of 

 thorny okatilla stems erected about it and attached by withes 

 or yucca lashings. Sometimes the houses are rectangular, this 

 form being probably accultural. The rectangular houses may 

 be of adobe (sun-dried bricks), cajon (adobe mud, either mixed 

 with stones or not, molded directly into walls), stone plastered 

 with adobe mud, sacaton grass, okatilla stems and sahuaro ribs, 

 or combinations of these. The adobe construction is undoubtedly 

 derived from Mexican neighbors and has not been long in use; 

 the adobe or adobe and stone structures are flat-roofed like the 

 ordinary Mexican houses, covered with earth, and sometimes 

 provided with rainspouts; such houses usually have smoke- 

 holes, and in some of the eastern and southern villages they 

 have rude chimneys with chimney-pots (ollas with broken bot- 

 toms). The doorway of the accultural house is usually five or 

 six feet high, something over two feet in average width, but con- 

 siderably wider at bottom than at top, and commonly extending 

 not quite to the ground ; doors are unusual, save in the more 

 acculturized villages, when they are either carpenter- made or 

 composed of okatilla stems lashed together. The simpler rect- 

 angular houses grade in structure, material, and appurtenances 

 into the primitive, dome-shape type. The adjacent shelter 

 (vah'-toh) appears to be an innovation derived from Spanish 

 contact; it consists of four, nine, or more crotched posts of mes- 

 quite, set in a rectangle and carrying stringers of mesquite or 

 paloverde and cross-sticks of okatilla or sahuaro, sometimes 

 thatched carelessly with sacaton, more frequently covered with 

 leafy shrubbery, coarse sticks, etc, or with hides, bits of canvas,- 

 blankets, etc. The cooking circle or roofless house is primitive ; 

 it consists of a series of mesquite posts, four or five feet high, set 

 in a circle four to six yards in diameter, connected save at one 

 point (which serves as a doorway) by two or three horizontal 

 binders, usually of mesquite sapling, to which a layer of sacaton 

 grass is lashed. During fair weather — and nearly all days are. 



