rule. In a pamphlet commissioned by Lord Baltimore for the use of
colonists going to Maryland in 1635, the author wrote that Indian “houses
are made like our Arboures, covered with matts, others with barke of trees,
which defend them from the injury of the weather.” So adept at defending
against “injury of the weather” were they that Captain John Smith reported
that the colonists often preferred these houses (Algonquian,wigwangs) to
English-style houses.
Even in the relatively warm Southeast, as an early Spanish visitor
wrote, when “They shut the very small door at night and build a fire inside
the house... it gets as hot as an oven, and stays so all night long so that
there is no need of clothing.” In contrast to the houses in which the
colonists froze, the surveyor and presumed expert on Indians, John
Lawson, found them “as hot as Stoves.” Chickasaw round houses
reminded James Adair of Dutch stoves. They were, he wrote, woven
around upright posts and daubed “all over about six or seven inches thick
with tough clay, well mixt with withered grass.”
Houses were also intended, like the garrison houses of the New
England frontier, for defense. Winter was generally a time of truce, but
summer was a time of raids, so, as James Adair commented, summer
houses also served as “a savage philosopher’s castle, the side and gables of
which are bullet proof.”
Indians’ materials and designs, like their clothing, were similar to those
of the Irish. To build their houses, Indians first set stout poles at the cor-
ners. They then cut tall bamboo-like poles 15 or 20 feet long and set them
along the line where they wanted a wall. Then they wove into that line
lighter saplings or reeds, lashing each piece into position with leather
thongs or strips of wood. In effect, they wove the walls and roof like a bas-
ket. Walls could be built to almost any length, since each section was self-
supporting. When the wall reached the desired height, two or more
builders would climb up on each facing wall until it bent inward under
their weight. Where the poles met, they were tied together and the roof was
interlaced like the sides. This formed a building somewhat similar to the
frame of a Mongol or Turkman yurt. And, like the yurt, the house was then
sealed against rain and cold by a covering of skins, bark, or—as in the Irish
post-and-wattle house—with thatch. Robert Beverley observed that the
14 THE BIRTH OF AMERICA