CHAPTER IX

HOUSES AND FURNISHINGS

The Atsugewi used earth-covered lodges as their permanent winter dwellings. These varied in size from about nine feet in length, for a single family, to more than thirty feet in length for a chief’s house which was usually larger than other houses. Most frequently houses were about twenty feet long and somewhat narrower, being occupied by three to five families. The earth lodge was elliptical in shape with one center post planted firmly in the earth floor somewhat back of true center. This supported beams running to two smaller secondary posts and to earth shoulders which resulted from excavation of the entire floor to a depth of about three feet. On the beams other poles or rafters and bark slabs (usually of incense-cedar) were laid. The whole sloping roof was then covered with pine needles and a layer of earth.

The main entrance was through a hole about in the center of the roof. Over this a heavy mat was placed in bad weather. This opening also served as a smoke hole. A ladder made of two poles with cross pieces tied on with serviceberry withes was used inside.

logs or poles a fireplace b mainpost with forked top c front posts with forked tops

A secondary entrance of small size, used by children, was built horizontally at ground level on the south (front) end of the house. It projected tunnel-like a short distance beyond the lodge outside wall. The main purpose of this ground-level opening was to act as a ventilator duct to supply draft for proper burning of the cooking and house warming fire which burned in front of the center post. At night the ventilator duct was closed. This reduced air supply, causing the fire to burn very slowly. Glowing coals developed as a result. These produced reduced but adequate heat for the occupants who slept with their feet to the fire. Men did all of the house construction work except for excavation. The women did this with digging sticks and wooden or basketry scoops with which they threw the dirt out of the pit. Excavation of the floor of the lodge not only made it easier to construct a strong house, but contributed materially to the warmth of the standard winter house.

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. A thin layer of grass, carefully kept away from the fire, covered the floor. The Indians slept on the floor on mats made of tule. During the day these and the sleeping blankets were rolled up and provided the only seats. However, sitting usually consisted of squatting on the floor.

Blankets of deer and elk skin were generally used. Atsugewi also used loose tule or grass blankets and all our tribes employed both woven rabbit skin and patchwork rabbit or fox blankets. Yana in addition to all the foregoing utilized bear skins; sometimes they removed the hair from their blankets.

Atsugewi pillows were of bundles of leaves or grass while those of the mountain Maidu were harder, being merely piles of small poles, blocks of wood, or rocks.

Interior earth walls of the houses were sometimes hung with tule mats or skins fastened with pegs to prevent dirt from sloughing off and rolling onto the floor. A few shelves might also be provided by laying wooden slabs on sticks driven into the dirt walls.

There were other less substantial winter houses consisting either of small double lean-tos of bark slabs or conical houses on frameworks of slender poles and with shallow excavations. Some dirt was thrown against the outside walls for added warmth. Lazy people, who were usually consequently poor in the necessities and comforts of normal Indian life, lived in this more flimsy type of house. Also, women when indisposed repaired to such huts. A doorway was left in the siding to be closed by a tule mat in these little houses. They were also equipped with small smoke holes for central fires.

Atsugewi summer houses as such really did not exist. Summer camps were little more than circular enclosures of brush, juniper, or other conifer limbs or of rock. These were ten or fifteen feet across with openings to the east. There was no roof, although branches and bark slabs might be put over crude frames in rainy weather. If a person were caught in a sudden shower he might make a temporary shelter by leaning bark slabs, if available, against a large rock or log lying on the ground.

Atsugewi did not have any separate sweat houses nor dancing or assembly chambers, but used the larger earth lodge houses for these purposes. The largest belonged to chiefs and to other well-to-do Indians. Heat for sweating was provided directly by fire and not by production of steam as was the case with Plains Indians who threw water on hot stones. In recent years, however, after introduction of the horse, Atsugewi learned the latter technique and also constructed Plains Indian type sweat houses of one to three person capacity. These were dome shaped, and built of willow poles set in the ground in a circle. The tops were bent over and tied down, and this framework was covered with skins.

Old type sweating was for men only, but Indian women—usually wives—also sweated with men in the new style separate sweat houses. Old time Atsugewi purposes in sweating were for gaining success in hunting, in gambling, and for general good luck. Some praying was done, but there were no formalized ceremonies or dances amongst the Atsugewi. Men sometimes slept in sweat houses.

In the case of all local tribes sweating was followed by a cold plunge, if available nearby. Lacking this facility, a cold sponge bath was taken.

The mountain Maidu earth lodge for dwelling and sweating was similar to that of the Atsugewi. However, northeast Maidu earth lodges “koom” were simpler and smaller than those of northwest and southern Maidu. Three posts, often forked were used in place of 10 or 11 employed for valley lodges. Excavation was about three feet deep, circular in plan, and from 18 to 40 feet across. A large flat stone was placed upright at the foot of the mainpost between it and the fire in the center. The vertical walls of the excavation were usually covered or lined with vertically placed whole or split logs or with bark slabs. Logs were lain horizontally on the three posts as indicated on the accompanying sketch. Radial rafters supporting the roof were placed on these beams and sloping downward to the ground surface outside as well as to two small posts at the small openway or ventilator passage. Cross poles were placed horizontally on the rafters and on these, large pieces of bark, branches, and pine needles were successively laid. Lastly, a heavy covering of soil 8 to 20 inches thick was heaped on the structure. On top in the center a smokehole was left, large enough to serve as the main entrance originally, but after the coming of white man, the smokehole was made smaller, and, instead, the originally small ventilator tunnel which sloped from floor level up to the ground surface outside was enlarged, thus supplanting the smokehole as the main entrance. Originally a ladder of two poles with cross pieces tied on with grapevine or other withes gave vertical access from the floor to the smokehole entrance. Dixon reports that a notched log was sometimes used for the purpose among mountain Maidu.

The koom or lodge was occupied from November to March and was situated on the edges of wide meadows in mountain Maidu areas. At lower elevation occupancy was more or less continuous.

Mountain Maidu did not have separate sweat houses. They always used a large earth dwelling lodge for the purpose. This was similar to the Atsugewi practice. These Maidu did, however, have a formalized sweat dance. Also different from the Atsugewi was the practice of men using the sweat house for gambling, handicraft work, and competitive singing.

The “hoe-bow” of the mountain Maidu was a hut, 8 to 15 feet in diameter and excavated 12 to 15 inches deep. Two main poles were securely tied near the end. From the resulting “V” at the top, shorter poles were laid to a pair of slender posts about three feet high and set about three feet apart along the edge of the excavation. Against this frame branches, bark, and leaves were piled and earth was heaped around the bottom. The doors of all such bark huts opened to the south and were hung with a skin or tule mat.

The rude summer shelter or shade provider was just like that of the Atsugewi.

Information on Yahi house details are somewhat scanty, but in all probability they were small conical bark-covered huts while some larger earth lodges were built to house several families—in general similar, but perhaps smaller than those of the other tribes of the Lassen area. The large pretentious lodge, constructed solely for sweating and ceremonies, of the Sacramento Valley tribes seems to have been lacking among all of our local tribes.

The common bark hut dwelling of the Yana was apparently built over a circular depression two feet deep, the top of the house rising about six feet above the ground. It was probably like the mountain Maidu huts, being a series of poles resting on the edges of the excavation. These met and were tied at the top to form a cone of low slope, although some informants claimed that the posts were set so firmly that tying together was omitted. The frames were covered with pine and incense-cedar bark slabs leaving a smoke hole near each apex. Earth was probably banked on the lower sloping walls. Entrance was never through the smoke hole as in the case of Atsugewi and some mountain Maidu earth lodge houses, but by means of a small door at ground level on the south side. The entrance was protected by a little covered way extending outward three feet from the house wall, and decked over by a gable roof of low pitch. A ramp of low pitch extended from the floor of the house through this antechamber to the ground level outside as no steps were constructed.

The Yana lodge houses were not numerous. The ground plan was long, usually wedge or oval in outline and designed for several families, each with its own fire. As with the other tribes discussed in this booklet, such buildings also served as sweat houses. A ladder consisting of a notched log extended down from the smoke hole to the floor. One, two, or three center posts with radiating rafters and shorter side posts were employed. The Yana followed the Atsugewi practice of providing each earth lodge with a south facing, ground level, tunnel-like ventilator entrance of small size. It is possible that Yana did have a few special sweating lodges of the same design, but the matter is debatable. During sweating Yana men talked and played; the main purpose of sweating was to make men strong.

It has already been pointed out that all four tribes which used what is now Lassen Volcanic National Park did so only during the summer. During their high mountain sojourn, the local Indians did not live in houses as such. There, residence during the three or four summer months was in temporary camps, usually roofless circular areas to accommodate several families. These were fenced in with brush and were entered by one or more openings somewhat in the same manner as campsites reserved for visitors at their permanent villages at lower elevations. Four-posted horizontal roofs, to provide shade, were sometimes constructed too. Yana seem to have made a lean-to or hut with grass and bark covering for summer roofs.