Page:The American Indian.djvu/155

Rh The influence of this type of architecture reaches northern California, for though the heavy carved timbers have a central distribution only, we find the rectangular house of upright planks, with a circular door throughout the coastal belt of Oregon and Washington. In Canada it invades the mountainous area of the Déné, but in Alaska it stops rather suddenly.

Central and southern California present simple but various forms of shelter. Yet, they may be characterized as shelters of brush and tule reeds. More permanent houses are sometimes formed by setting up poles over slight excavations. Toward the interior we meet with the great Shoshoni range, the characteristic shelter of which is a simple brush-covered lodge. Two forms occur, the precise distribution of which is not yet known, but the prevailing one seems to be a low dome-shaped, grass-covered affair still encountered among the Comanche and the Apache. The other type we have mentioned is a pointed brush shelter upon a tripod of forked poles, a form closely allied to the Navajo hogan and perhaps to the tipi.

Strictly considered, none of these houses so far described can be classed as underground. Yet, some approach this qualification in that they have sunken floors. Thus, in California, the house is often over a shallow pit, and elsewhere it was common to remove the surface soil to expose the clay or other hard layer, loam being too powdery when dry to make a good floor. However, when we turn to the inland Salish tribes of British Columbia, we meet a more distinctly underground house entered through the smoke-hole at the center by a stepped ladder. The distribution of this form centers very closely among the inland Salish who may, therefore, be considered its originators. The next place where we encounter a subterranean house is among the Eskimo of Alaska. In this case we have two ways of entering: through the smoke-hole, and by a long covered trench, each used according to the season. The Eskimo house, however, is often set over a very shallow excavation and earth heaped over its framework like the earth-lodge of the Missouri. This form of house extends eastward beyond the mouth of the Mackenzie, but from there