DWELLINGS AND TIOUSE-BUILDING. North of the Pueblo region the general house plan may ho described as circular. Among the Haida and others of the Alaskan coast, and extending down to the Columbia, the prevailing type was of boards, painted with symbolic designs and with the famous heraldic totem-poles. carved from cedar-trunks. standing at the entrance. Along the Columbia were found great communal houses. California had several distinct types, of which the dug-out and the dome-shaped clay-built house, entered from the top, were perhaps most common. The Piute, Apache, Papago, and others of Ne vada and Arizona had the i•ilsinp, an elliptical structure covered with reed mats or grass. The Navaho hofpin was a circular house of logs, cov ered with earth. and entered through a short passageway. The square-built stone or adobe dwelling of the Pueblo marked the northern limit of the Mexican culture area. These pueblos. as they were called by the Spaniards. were aggrega tions of continuous rooms occupied by different families, so that the whole village sometimes con sisted of but a single house, sometimes several stories in height. The roofs were flat, a projec tion of the lower wall within the room served for scats and beds, and the fireplace was in one corner, instead of in the centre, as was almost universal elsewhere. For better security against the wild tribes, the outer walls of the lower story were often without doors nr windows, en trance being gained through trap-doors in the roof by means of ladders, which were pulled up at night. For the same reason, many of the pueblos, especially in ancient times, were placed upon high mesas, or on shelves on the sides of almost inaccessible cliffs, whence the name 'cliff-dwellers: The prevailing type on the plains was the conical skin tipi (a word of Sioux ori gin), no other being so easily portable and so adapted to withstand the violent winds of the treeless prairies. The Pawnee, Arikara, :Mandan,
and one or two other tribes living close along the Missouri River built earth-covered log houses, somewhat like those of the Navaho, but much larger. The 'Wichita in the south built station ary houses of grass thatch laid over poles. About the upper lakes was found the bark-covered tipi, while east and southeast was the 'wigwam. a rectangular structure of stout poles, overlaid with bark or mats of woven rushes, and in gen eral form closely resembling a rounded wagon top. Among the Iroquois it became the com munal 'long house: In the Gulf States were found houses, either rectangular 'or circular, of upright logs plastered over with clay.
The Pueblo villages had underground kiras, or public rooms. where the men of the various secret orders made their preparations for the great ceremonials. It corresponded somewhat to the medicine lodge of the plains tribes, built of green cottonwood branches for the celebration of their annual sun-dance, while among the Gulf tribes its place was supplied by the circular log 'town house.' Some of the Eastern and Southern tribes had also dead-houses, temples, and public granaries. ln general. an Indian village was a scattering settlement. but with many of the Eastern tribes the more important towns were compactly built and strongly stock aded.