Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/164

 ladders which they have for then-houses," Coronado says in his relation, "are all in a manner movable and portable as ours be." The ladders at the Mandan village were made of two limbs growing-nearly parallel and severed below the junction, as shown in the figure, and set with the forked end upon the ground, and the ends against the scaffold. Depressions were sunk in the rails to receive the rounds, which were secured by rawhide strings. They were usually from ten to twelve feet long, and one or two at each scaffold.

Situated thus picturesquely on a bluff, at an angle of the river, with houses of this peculiar model, and with such an array of scaffolds rising up among them, the village was strikingly conspicuous for some distance both above and below on the river, and presented a remarkable appearance.

Afterwards, at the present Minnetaree and Mandan village, about sixtyfive miles above on the east side of the Missouri, and also at the new Arickaree village on the west side, and quite near it, I had an opportunity to see houses precisely similar to those described in actual occupation by the Indians, with their interior arrangements and their mode of life.

A reference, at least, should be made to the Maricopas and Mohaves of the Lower Colorado River, who, although village Indians of the pueblo type, still live in ordinary communal houses of the northern type, which are thus described by General Emory: "They (the Maricopas) occupy thatched cottages thirty or forty feet in diameter, made of twigs of cottonwood trees, interwoven with straw of wheat, cornstalks, and cane." Those occupied by the Mohaves, as described by Captain Sitgreave, are similar in character. The Pimas of the Gila River, on the contrary, claim that their ancestors erected liouses of adobe brick, and cultivated by irrigation. They point to the remains of ancient structures and of old acequias in the valley of the Gila, as Captain Crossman informs us, as the works of their foretathers. But now their condition is very similar to that of the Mohaves. The last-namedwriter remarks that "generally several married couples with their children live in one hut."