146 b 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. 



Houses. 



Main beams. 



annually take over a large number of canoes to Port Simpson and 

 the .Nasse, which are sold, or exchanged there for oolachen grease or 

 other comodities. The canoe paddles are usually made of cedar or the 

 yellow cypress. Balers for the canoes are generally cut out of wood 

 in the form of a scoop, with handle behind (Fig. 7) or made from a 

 piece of cedar bark gathered up at the ends in a fan shape, with a stick 

 secured across the top. 



Various particulars concerning the manner of the Haidas in living 

 in villages and the houses which they construct have already been 

 given. The houses are placed with their gable-ends to the beach, 

 which constitutes the street, the roof sloping down at a moderate 

 angle on each side, with a projecting oblong ' lantern ' or erection in 

 the centre intended for the escape of the smoke, and fitted with a 

 movable shutter which may be set against the wind. The houses are 

 oblong or nearly square, and are often from 40 to 50 feet in length of 

 side, and erected to accommodate a great number of people. The 

 older and better built houses are almost invariably partly sunk in the 

 ground. That is to say, the ground has been excavated to a depth of 

 six or eight feet in a square area in the centre of the house, with one 

 or two large steps running round the sides. A small square of bare 

 earth is left in the centre below the smoke-hole, the rest of the floor 

 being generally covered with split cedar planks. The steps which run 

 round the sides are faced and covered above by large hewn slabs of 

 cedar, and servo not only for sleeping and lounging places, but as the 

 depositary of all sorts of boxes and packages of property belonging to 

 the family. Some of the houses stand on the surface of the ground 

 without any excavation. The pattern of the house itself is maintained 

 with little variation in all parts of the islands, and has doubtless been 

 handed down from time immemorial. The first process is to plant 

 firmly in the ground four stout posts of sufficient height at each end. 

 These arc called kwul-skug-it, and are intended to bear four large beams 

 which run from front to back of the house,, and are called Tsan-skoo- 

 ka-da. The heads of the posts are hollowed to receive the horizontal 

 beams, which, with the posts, are circular in section. The longitudinal 

 beams do not project beyond the posts which bear them, and in front 

 of them at each end is a frame composed of large flat beams, which 

 sitpport the edge of the roof and the hewn planks of the front of the 

 house. There are generally four flat upright beams, one in front of 

 each of the main upright posts before described. These support a pair 

 of beams which have the same slope with the roof, and are channelled 

 below to receive the upper ends of the hewn boards which close the 

 front of the house. These beams are called ki-watl-ka. The two 

 upright beams nearest the centre ki-stang r o, the outer kioul-ki-stung* 



