Arizona weekly miner., 1875-04-02
INDIAN HTGWAJiS.

There are seven distinct styles of wigwams fosnd in California, made by different tribes, according as one kind of material or another IS more abundant in given locality. Wood, earth, and different sorts of thatch are the materials employed. In wooded regions, poles, puncheons, and the great slabs of bark furnished by certain trees are used, and the structure (except on the Klamath River and Clear Lake) bears general resemblance to the traditional Indian wigwam; but on the vast treeless plains they use only timber enough to make a rude frame work, and this is covered with heavy layer of earth dome shaped. In a house of this kind a mere handful of twigs or grass will heat the at mosphere comfortably all day. The tribes that live in thatch-huts generally burn them every year to destroy the vermin. As soon as the dry season sets in most Indians quit their warmer habitations, having nothing to fear from rain, and live in Uickiups, which are brush-wpod booths-often nothing but fiat roof without sides. These are situated upon little knOlls close beside the few living streams; and here they live delightful, free and-easy, joyous, indolent life through the long. cloudless summer, rowing along the creek in the deep shade of the willows, gath
 
 or lying prone in the shade of some great live oak and drowsing their idle lives away Although the California Indians probably lived as peaceably together as any tribes on the continent, they were careful so to place their camps or villages as to prevent surprise In the mountains they generally selected a sheltered open cove, where an enemy could not easily approach within bow-shot without hai,rr IiSanr.rol a,I ,,,ho d. knoll in the cove to afford good drainage in the drenching rains of winter The Flutes of Nevada made their camps on hill-topS, compelling the squaws to bring up water in willow jugs; and Kit Carson used to say that the reason so many emigrants were killed in early days was because they would | camp by the water where the savages could ! bounce down upon them. But the Califor- | nians were either more considerate for their | squaws, or less fearful of their enemies.
 4 few words will suffice to describe one of | these knoll-bult hamlets in the foot hills Tn | front IS the stream, whose bed is a dense | jungle of willows and aquatic weeds while | back of the village the low rounded hills | spread away in the arid sweltering air, tawny -colored and crisped in the pitiless drought, with here and there a whisp of faded poison-oak, or clump of evergreen 'hdpdrTdt, or a low, leaden-green, thin haired silver-pine, scarcely able to cast shadow in the blinding glare of a California summer. Drowning the knoll the dome-shaped dance house swells broadly up-a barbaric temple md hot air bath in one-in the middle of he hamlet, and an Indian is occasionally 'een crawling on all-fours into or out of the ow archcd entrance; hard by which stands solitary white-oak that swings its circling ha low over the village. Halt-a-dozen conf al smeke-blackened lodges are scattered 'ver the knoll, each with its open side on the forth to protect the inmates from the sun hne; and rude uickiupS stretch raggedly rom one to another, or are thrown out as wings on either side. One or more acorn .ranaries of wicker work stand round each odge, much like hogsheads in shape and ize, either on the ground or mounted on ,osts as high as one's head-full of acorns nd capped with thatch. T Stephea Posoers ia )ceridnd Monthly for April