BARRETT— POMO BUILDINGS 



second has a triangular cross-section. These two species served not 

 only as thatch but also as the materials for the mats with which the 

 inner walls were lined, and which were used also as beds, as floor 

 mats, and for various other household purposes. The third species 

 was used for thatch only. 



This tule-thatched house was usually elliptical or circular in 

 ground-plan and had a dome-shaped roof. Its framework was built 

 in the same manner as was that of the grass-thatched house just 

 described, and the tule was applied and attached in about the same 

 way. It was first made up into small bundles and several of these 

 were sometimes very loosely held at their butt-ends by a single course 

 of plain-twining with tule. Along the ridge-pole was also a smoke 

 hole or slit, called kasa'hwil (E), similar to that of the brush house. 

 In plates in, I, and iv, i, are two views of a typical tule house, photo- 

 graphed in 1902 near Bartlett Landing on the eastern shore of Clear 

 lake. The first shows a view of the long, front side of the house, with 

 its low door set in the middle; the other an end view of the same 

 structure: both illustrate the method of tying the tule into bundles 

 and also the method of binding with poles the four courses forming the 

 thatch. The tying of these bundles shows in these pictures near the 

 ground. In this instance, the butt-ends of some of the stems in the 

 lowest course have been placed near the ground, though, as a rule, 

 particularly in the upper courses of the thatch, these butt-ends were 

 placed upward. This house was situated on a bench on the northern 

 slope of one of the foothills overlooking Clear lake, and was placed 

 with its longer axis east and west. Its dimensions were thirty-four 

 by fourteen feet and its height was about twelve feet. The ridge-pole 

 was twenty-five feet long. The framework consisted of eighty verti- 

 cally placed poles, forming forty arches, kato' coko'tl (£), spaced from 

 twelve to fifteen inches apart, and each bound to the ridge-pole. 

 They were also bound to seven rows of horizontal poles, called coko'tl 

 (£), so placed from bottom to top of the framework as to give equal 

 spaces between each successive row. Thus, the whole framework had 

 openings about a foot to eighteen inches square, and was very firm 

 and rigid. The thatch consisted of bundles of Scirpus robustus laid 

 on in four courses, and was from six to ten inches thick. The butts 

 of the stems were placed uppermost, except as above noted, and each 

 course overlapped the one below about a foot, thus producing a very 

 smooth and even exterior surface. A smoke slit about a foot wide 

 and perhaps twenty feet long was left along the ridge-pole. The door, 

 which was in the middle of the northern side of this house, was about 

 three feet wide and three and a half feet high. Such a house took its 



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