Evening star., 1933-08-26
WOMAN BELIEVED
FIRST ARCHITECT.
Instinct to Protect Children
May Have Led to Home
Making.
BY JAMES WALDO FAWCETT.

genius ever was known than that mani
tested in the earliest of artificial houses.
For countless generations. it has been
presumed, humanity existed without
made-to-order shelter. Men lived in
trees, in caves, under precipices in mar
rcw canyons, on the terraces of hills,
wherever they might find protection
from wind and rain, burning heat and
paralyZlng cold.
Rexford Newcomb and William A.
Foster, in their study of Home Archi-
lecture" say: The seeking OF shelter
from the elements is primitive animal
impulse and, from time immemorial,
man, like other living creatures, has
sought the protection of shelters of one
sort or another. Even before he learned
how to construct shelters for himself,
he Inhabited those of natucal forma-
tlon. To this fact the cave dwellings
Of France, Spain and other parts OF
the world bear testimony.
AT length, however, man triumphed
over his environment and learned how
to construct a house to protect his
body. These houses varied somewhat,
depending upon location, climate, the
materials available, and the mode OF
life of the inhabitants. Thus we have
the whole range of primitive shelters
from the grass and brush huss OF the
tropical bushman to the ephemeral
lgloos of the Eskimo. AS society strait
occupation, the primitive house was
modified accordingly, and we find the
hunters and fishers living in caves, the
agrlculturistS in hutS OF one material
or another, and the shepherds in
tents. These constitute the three varie-
ties of primitive shelter in the temper
ate zone"
Mother Guards Children.
Almost surely the earliest of artifi-
cial shelters were entirely utilitarian in
purpose. 1t is possible to vision the
circumstances which may have brought
them into being. A mother with
child, or perhaps with several children,
conceives, perhaps very dinly, the feasi-
billty of a structure to guard them
from the rain, the cold or the prowling
dangers of the forest or plain. She sets
in order around them ring of stones,
and upon that ring she places another
and another until she has evolved
hollow cairn with a wide door. Over
the open top she arranges small
branches of trees or punches of long
grass-the first roof ever invented to
meet a human need. The next step
easily may have been to construct
larger cairn. capable of accommodating
the entire family group. The model,
once seen. would be duplicated by other
mothers. Soon the idea would be democ-
ratized. Every family would have
house.
Or it may be that it was house OF
grass that the first architect set up, or
a house of skins. No one knows posi-
lively. The whole field is one of spec
ulation. One guess is as meritorlous as
another. The point is that houses did
not have spontaneous generation; they
did not magically spring into existence.
Some one single individual of eXcelling
genius put together the first invented
home, and it has been copied, repro
duced, improved. decade after decade
epoch after epoch, up to the present
day. All the structures Of the earth are
descendants of that first rude shelter
whose designer is forever nameless, for
ever destined to be unknown.
The likelihood OF woman as the
forerunner of all later architects and
builders is supported by the fact that in
eXtant primitive societies it commonly
is Woman's work to make the home.
She not only attends to the cooking, the
sewing and all the other traditional
household duties; she actually is the
home builder. Her husband is too busy
hunting and fishing. He may assist in
assembling the materials of the house,
but the business of putting the integral
parts together he leaves to his mate.
Only among relatively advanced tribes
Is the work shared.
L. H. Dudley Buxton. in his discus
sion of Primitive Labor" writes: The
man cuts the trees for the hut, builds
it, thatches it. makes the door and
bed. The woman fetches the thatching
arasS, mudS the walls and the floor"
But he is quoting F. H. Melland and his
particular reference is to progressive
African people. w. J.. Sollas, in
"Ancient Hunters" paints a humber
picture of the habitations of the Bush
men Their huts," he says, were well
adapted to a hunters mode OF lie. A
few bent sticks formed the framework.
which was covered with mats made OF
reeds laid side by side and neatly sewn
together. The whole structure, which
was as much tent as hut, was hem
ispherical in shape, about feet in
diameter and only 3 feet in height, but
to compensate for this the ground with
in was excavated into kind Of nest.
Opportunity for adornment was found
even here for the mats were painted
with broad stripes of red ochre." Such
a home would be a woman's task to
manufacture The fact that 1t was
"decorated" goes far to prove the theory.
Teepee Developed by Women.
Harris Hawthorne Wilder. in Mans
of the American Indian as largely de-
veloped by the women" and o. T.
Mason, in ''Woman's Share in Primitive
Culture" tells how such a structure
was raised: The separate skins are cut
and fitted on the ground into single
piece resembling the cover of an UNI
brella. The seams are all sewed tightly
from top to bottom except one, which
is fastened by lacing from the top to
within or feet from the ground.
The opening thus left is the doorway,
the door itself being buffalo robe or
piece of cloth, fastened above and left
to hang loose, except in bad weather,
when it can be tightly stretched by
thongs. attached to the lower corner.
The ground being selected, the tepee
is spread out upon it. Three poles are
lightly tied together near the smaller
ends, and thrust under the covering,
passed through the oriflce at the top.
raised upright, and the lower end spread
out as far as possible. A rope or raw
hide thong attached to the top of
the covering is then thrown over the
crossing of the poles. One woman pulls
on the end Of this rope, while another
adjusts the tripod of poles until the
covering is stretched vertically and
lateraIy The other poles are then
carried in one by one; the small end,
thrust through the top opening, Is laid
against the point Of crossing of the first
three, the large end being carried out as
far as possible. When all the poles are
in, they are arranged equidistant, in q
circle, stretching the covering as tightly
as possible, a few wooden pins are
driven into the group through Sits in
the bottom of the covering on the out
side. and the work is done. Two
quick working women can put up
tepee in five minutes, and take It down