Indian house

“ The Indian's idea of a house is a different one to the trader's. It is not a place to be lived in, but exists merely as a shield from the weather. Accompanied by Goodfellow, a frowsy, stump-tailed dog from the hotel, I visited the Indian houses hereabout. ”

“ We here find among the Virginia Indians at the epoch of their discovery long-houses very similar to the long-houses of the Iroquois, with the same evidence of a large household. It may safely be taken as a rule that every Indian household in the aboriginal period, whether large or small, lived from common stores. ”

“ For his comfort, the Indian must build himself a house for protection against the rains. He cuts four forked poles, and stands them up as supports to a thatched roof, slings his cotton hamac from post to post, and there enjoys his rest, swinging in a cool, pleasant climate, while he looks out upon the growing maize, and listens to the dashing waters of the mountain streams. ”

“ THE ANCIENT HOUSES. MANY of the houses of the Klamath River Indians date back to the prehistoric centuries of the long, long ago, and have been repaired and rebuilt many generations. Some of them are hallowed with alluring traditions and inspiring history, when our people were powerful and ruled a mighty nation. The Indian name of these houses is Oc-lo-melth. One of these houses is situated at Wah-tec, less than two hundred yards from where the White Deer-Skin Dance is held, and is my mother’s house, where she was born and where she first looked out upon the light of a strange world. ”

“ The Indians teach their children never to stop or stand in the door-way, in going or coming in. One will never see any one, old or young, stop, stand or sit in the door of an Indian house. Since the death of this woman they always burn the basket material of the deceased, or any unfinished work that belongs to the one that has just died.
There is a coarse grass, a sort of saw grass, that grows on the ridges and under the tan-oaks and fir timber which they use in nearly all their baskets, and this grass we call ham-mo. ”

“ There are certain usages and customs of the Indian tribes generally which tend to explain their plan of life — their large households, their houses, and their house architecture. They deserve a careful consideration and even further investigation beyond the bounds of our present knowledge. The influence of American civilization has very generally broken up their old plan of life, and introduced a new one more analogous to our own. ”

“ In the whole building there was no lime, stone, iron, or lead. They build their fires in the middle of the floor, according to the number of families which live in it, so that from one end to the other each of them boils its own pot, and eats when it likes, not only the families by themselves, but each Indian alone, according as he is hungry, at all hours, morning, noon, and night. ”

“ Hunger and destitution were not known at one end of an Indian village while abundance prevailed at the other. Joint-tenement houses, each occupied by one large household, as among the Iroquois, or by several household groups, as in Yucatan, were the natural and inevitable result of their usages and customs. Communism in living and the law of hospitality, it seems probable, accompanied all the phases of Indian life in savagery and in barbarism. These and other facts of their social condition embodied themselves in their architecture, and will contribute to its elucidation. ”

“ One result of the comfortless and dreary aspect of the interior of an Indian's house is that very few of them have any home life, as we understand it. [57] The Indian does not sit indoors, unless compelled to do so by sickness, or stress of weather. And though the majority are satisfied so to live, because no other manner of life is known to them, there is nothing beautiful about it. ”

“ We then went to the home of the young Indian. He had a neat story-and-a-half house, nearly covered with trailing vines. It was well furnished, a cabinet organ, a sewing machine, some books and pictures, a gasoline stove, carpets, curtains and other furniture of civilization. He was a prosperous lumberman, and a full-blooded Indian.
I asked him regarding the violin, theodolite, books, money, etc. ”

“ Indian migrations are gradual outflows from an overstocked area, followed by organization into independent tribes, and continuing through centuries of time, until the ethnic life of each tribe is expended, or a successful establishment is finally gained in a new and perhaps far distant land. They planted gardens and constructed houses as they advanced from district to district, and removed as circumstances prompted a change of location. ”

“ Our Indian lock is, when we go out, to set the corn pounder or a billet of wood against the door, so that it may be seen that no body is within, and there is no danger that any Indian would presume to enter a house thus secured.” Let me be permitted to illustrate this by an anecdote.
In the year 1771, while I was residing on the Big Beaver, I passed by the door of an Indian, who was a trader, and had consequently a quantity of goods in his house. He was going with his wife to Pittsburg, and they were shutting up the house, as no person remained in it during their absence. ”

“ Typical winter house of the local permanent Indian villages at lower elevations.
There was no furniture as such. Each family used an assigned portion of the house, and cooked its own food, but utilized the central communal fire. ”

“ CHAPTER V. HOUSES OF INDIAN TRIBES NORTH OF NEW MEXICO. Houses of Indian tribes must be considered as parts of a common system of construction—A common principle runs through all its forms; that of adaptation to communism in living within the household—It explains this architecture—Communal houses of tribes in savagery; in California; in the valley of the Yukon; in the valley of the Columbia—Communal house of tribes in the lower status of barbarism— Ojibwa lodge—Dakota skin tent—Long houses of Virginia Indians ”

“ Tibeats to a considerable amount in consideration of his services in building the mills on Indian Creek, and also a weaving-house, corn-mill and other erections on the plantation at Bayou Bœuf, not yet completed. ”

“ A small church, with the missionary cottage and a few log cabins, were in the midst. Groups of Indians were lounging upon the bank gazing at us, while others unconcernedly pursued their usual occupations of fishing or hoeing. How much more graceful were those wild sons of the forest, than the civilized men I had observed upon the shores I had passed. Their mantles of cloth or blanket stuff, trimmed with gay colors, were gracefully thrown around them, and their ornamented leggins or moccasins glittered as they walked. How dignified is the tread of an Indian! ”

“ I saw Indians out-of-doors working the soil, and Indians indoors, in the shops, handling tools as skilfully as the average white man. I saw houses inhabited by picked Indian families—young people with children, and the “housekeeping”—one of the most comprehensive words in the world—was so thorough in all visible respects that either family seemed fit to teach domestic economy and neatness in many Northern villages I have seen. ”

“ Not long since, a strolling Indian went to sell baskets at the house of a well-known lawyer in my neighborhood. “Do you wish to buy any baskets?” he asked. “No, we do not want any,” was the reply. “What!” exclaimed the Indian as he went out the gate, “do you mean to starve us?” Having seen his industrious white neighbors so well off,—that the lawyer had only to weave arguments, and by some magic, wealth and standing followed, he had said to himself; I will go into business; I will weave baskets; it is a thing which I can do. ”

“ From the rough booth of boughs and reeds of 1770 to the pillars, arched corridors, and domes of the stately stone churches of a half-century later, is a change only a degree less wonderful than the change in the Indian, from the naked savage with his one stone tool, grinding acorn-meal in a rock bowl, to the industrious tiller of soil, weaver of cloth, worker in metals, and singer of sacred hymns. The steps of this change were slow at first. In 1772, at the end of five years' work, five missions had been founded, and four hundred and ninety-one Indians baptized. ”

“ Upon reaching the upper slopes of the hill I dismounted, in order to visit some Indian farm buildings that occupied several acres of rising 210 ground near our path. Although there were evidences of what may be called comparative wealth, these Indians—like all others that I had seen—only possessed a single hut with one large room in it. Men, women and lads were all busy; the boys cleaning and spinning wool for their black ponchos or cloaks, and the women, as usual, engaged in grinding maize and making tortillas. ”

“ Attention is called to this fact, because we shall find the Village Indians, as a rule, living in large houses, each containing many apartments, and accommodating five hundred or more persons. The household of several families of the northern Indians reappears in the southern tribes in a much greater household of a hundred or more families in a single joint tenement house, but not unlikely broken up into several household groups. ”

“ The record does not leave the impression that the lands of their reservation are the most fertile, the landscape the most beautiful or their homes the most splendid specimens of architecture. But this is their home-their ancestral home. There, they, their children, and their forebears were born. They, too, have their memories and their loves. Some things are worth more than money and the costs of a new enterprise.
There may be instances in which Congress has broken faith with the Indians, although examples of such action have not been pointed out to us. ”

“ If he was right, here was our quiet English house suddenly invaded by a devilish Indian Diamond—bringing after it a conspiracy of living rogues, set loose on us by the vengeance of a dead man. ”

“ Most of the Indians have clean, neat, dwelling houses, white-washed within and without, either with decayed oyster-shells, coarse-chalk, or white marly clay ; one or other of which, each of our Indian nations abounds with, be they ever so far distant from the sea-shore : the Indians, as well as the traders, usually decorate their summer-houses with this favourite white-wash. ”

“ About thirty of the Indians, having finished haying, were away from home, most of them hunting in the mountains, or fishing at the weirs. Those at home had neat, well swept rooms, usually a sitting-room, bed-room and kitchen. Almost every one had a cooking stove, with its furniture, and crockery on the table, or in the cupboard a few chairs or benches, a clock in every house (often two) , occasionally a rocking-chair and bureau, always one or two bedsteads, with beds and blankets, and often covered with a neat quilt of the wife’s taste and make. ”

“ When the whites first settled in that neighborhood, the Indians raised corn and other provisions enough, not only for their own use, but also for the fur-traders and settlers.
Now they are altogether dependent for even the scanty subsistence by which they are dragging out the remnant of a miserable life, upon the whites. And what has been the cause of so great a change in a few years in the circumstances and habits of a whole people! The answer is plain to every one at all acquainted with Indian history. ”

“ The whole multitude then followed him to the widow's lodge, where he taught them what to do. They built their lodges around him, forming a very large town. They dug up the earth and planted—they built large houses, and learned many new arts, and were happy. Not as it is now—for all the Indians have forgotten it. Having done this, he ascended into the clouds, leaving his wife the future mother of a son, to whom he referred the people assembled to witness his departure, for subsequent counsel. ”

“ The Association has done a large and influential educational work, and through its Home Building and Loan Department has enabled Indians to build homes which have become civilizing centers of family life. ”

“ The lodge, being of small circumference, but little heat is required to warm the air, and by suspending the pot by a string from above, over a small blaze, the object is attained, without that extraordinary expenditure of wood, which, to the perfect amazement of the Indian, characterizes the emigrant's roaring fire of logs. The few fields which the Indians have cleared and prepared for corn fields, in northern latitudes, are generally to be traced to some adventitious opening, and have been enlarged very slowly. ”

“ Their carpets were fresh cedar boughs spread on the ground, and only renewed when they became offensively dirty from the accumulation of fish-bones and other offal, which are carelessly flung down during meals. Of furniture they had none; their seat the ground, their table the same, their beds mats or skins of animals,—such were the domestic arrangements of the Indian camp. [Footnote: Much improvement has taken place of late years in the domestic economy of the Indians, and some of their dwellings are clean and neat even for Europeans.] ”

“ A VISIT TO A NATIVE HOME THEIR home was not as far away as I had expected. But then, an Indian’s “home” is easily made, consisting of some upright poles, roughly thatched with long marsh grass. Beneath this they place their belongings and they sleep in hammocks at night. ”

“ They own five millions of acres of prairie lands, along the Missouri river to the Little Sioux, number about 2,000, and receive $42,000 a year for their lands sold in Illinois and Michigan. They are a respectable body of Indians, are good farmers, and educate their children. The payment of the annuities is always a season of great hilarity and festivity.—N. O. Pic.
[Pg 164] It is a characteristic of some of the Indian legends, that they convey a moral which seems clearly enough to denote, that a part of these legends were invented to convey instruction to the young folks who listen to them. ”