Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/92

 scaffolds, after which they are packed in baskets and then removed to their villages. This custom makes a general distribution of the capture, and leaves each household in possession of its share.

Their communism in living is involved in the size of the household, which ranged from ten to forty persons. "The houses of the Sokulks are made of large mats of rushes, and are generally of a square or oblong form, varying in length from fifteen to sixty feet; the top is covered with mats, leaving a space of twelve or fifteen inches, the whole length of the house, for the purpose of admitting the light and suffering the smoke to pass through; the roof is nearly flat, * * * and the house is not divided into apartments, the fire being in the middle of the large room, and immediately under the hole in the roof. * * * On entering one of these houses he [Captain Clarke] found it crowded with men, women, and children, who immediately provided a mat for him to sit on, and one of the party immediately undertook to prepare something to eat." Again: "He landed before five houses close to each other, but no one appeared, and the doors, which were of mats, were closed. He went towards one of them with a pipe in his hand, and pushing aside the mat entered the lodge, where he found thirty-two persons, chiefly men and women, with a few children, all in the greatest consternation." And again: "This village being part of the same nation with the village we passed above, the language of the two being the same, and their houses being of the same form and materials, and calculated to contain about thirty souls." In enumerating the people