The Exhibit of the Department of Anthropology

Part 2

Dwelling Group Models

The second most important concept available for Pan-American presentation embraces the arts and industries of the people. First in order among these is architecture - the building arts - represented by the dwelling or the cluster of houses and outbuildings occupied by a family or communal group. On account of the lack of room these subjects had to he presented by models on a wall scale - one twenty-fourth actual size - but it was found that all essential details could be reproduced and that something of the people and their occupations could be shown. The subjects were selected, as were the lay-figure family groups, to represent type peoples distributed at intervals between the far north and the far south. The series begins with the snow house of north Greenland and ends with the skin-covered windbreak of southern Patagonia.

The list of dwelling group models completed for the Exposition is as follows:
1. Snow houses of the Greenland Eskimo.
2. Earth house of the Alaskan Eskimo.
3. Wooden dwellings of the Haida, representing the North west coast tribes.
4. Skin and bark-covered lodges of the Montagnais Indians, Labrador.
5. Dwellings of the Sierra (Digger) Indians, California.
6. Skin lodges of the Great Plains Indians.
7. Grass houses of the Wichita Indians, Indian Territory.
8. Earth lodges of the Pawnee Indians, Dakota.
9. Cliff dwellings (ruins), Arizona.
10. Grass and adobe, houses of the Papago Indians, old style, Arizona.
11. Pile dwellings of the Venezuela tribes, South America.
12. Skin shelters of the Patagonians, South America.

The series was intended to include sixteen groups, but in the limited time allowed the work could not be completed.

[Ed. Note: click on any image for a larger view.]

The first model of the series shows a dwelling group of Central Eskimo. These people live on the area between Hudson Strait and Baffin Bay. Their winter houses are built of blocks of compacted snow laid up in a spiral manner, forming a dome. The blocks are some 3 feet long, 2 feet high, and 6 inches thick. The main chamber of the house varies from 5 to 121 feet in height and from 7 to 15 feet in diameter. Over the entrance a square is cut out and covered with seal intestine for a window. The main domed chamber is connected by passageways with one or more subordinate chambers which serve as storerooms. In the summer the natives fish in the open water; in winter seals are taken by cutting holes in the ice. The clothing of the men and women is made from skins of seals and consists of outside and inside trousers, jackets - those of the women having hoods - boots, and inside boots or socks made of light deerskin or birdskin.

In the second model of the series, we have a dwelling of the Kinugmut Eskimo, taken as a type of the Alaskan region. The Kings Island people are Kinugmut Eskimo, the same as at Port Clarence and Bering Strait. Their island has steep shores and their houses often resemble cliff structures. The structures here shown include the large communal house and the frame for keeping food out of the reach of the dogs. The house is built of logs set on end and a cobwork of logs resting on these. The whole is covered with earth and moss. Entrance is at the outer end of a long gallery and ventilation is through the roof. A portion has been cut out of one face of the model to expose to view the interior arrangements of the dwellings. There are side rooms for storage. The Port Clarence Eskimo live by hunting sea mammals and by fishing. This special locality is now interesting, since the United States is there making the experiment of introducing the domesticated reindeer.

The third model illustrates a dwelling group of the Montagnais Indians, a type of the eastern Canadian province. The Montagnais are of Algonquin stock, and were distributed formerly throughout Labrador as far north as Ungava Bay. They lived by hunting arid fishing. Their dwellings are of skins laid on a frame work of poles, not sewed together, but held down by trunks of small trees leaned against the outside and stones piled around the base. The group includes finished tents, wood pile, staging filled with skins and robes, men painting a robe, women drying skins, and birch-bark canoes. The Montagnais dress in deerskin robes, quite like those of the Eskimo, their neighbors, but well made and decorated with paint rather than embroidery. Their canoes are of bark, and not of skins, as are those of their neighbors in the north.

The fourth model represents a dwelling group of the Haida Indians, a type of the north Pacific ethnic region. The Haida Indians inhabit the Queen Charlotte Islands, lying in the Pacific Ocean 75 miles north of Vancouver Island. They are a separate linguistic family. Their houses are in the form of a regular parallelogram, averaging 50 feet in width and 35 feet in depth. Posts were planted in the ground, joined by means of timber and these, were coyered on the roof and sides anciently with hewn planks. In front are planted totem poles, upon which are carved animal totems, representing the crests of the different clans inhabiting the house. Entrance is often by means of a low doorway cut in the base of the totem post. All over the front are also are painted heraldic emblems connected with their family symbolism. The Haida tattoo their bodies with various designs, and now clothe themselves largely after the manner of the whites.

The fifth model illustrates a dwelling group of the so-called Digger Indians of the Californian region. The numerous tribes belong to several linguistic, families, and occupy an extensive area in California, Utah, arid Nevada. The received their name, from the use of roots in their arts. Their dwellings are primitive, but modified by contact with the whites. This group includes the communal house, built of boards and shingles; the mill shelter; the summer house, where the household arts are carried on; the storage platform, and the granary. As these people subsist largely on acorns, the greater part of the woman's life is spent in gathering the nuts, carrying them home in a conical basket suspended on the back by a band passing across the forehead, drying, and hulling them, grinding them in stone mortars, sifting, cooking, and serving the meal in the form of mush or bread. The men are hunters, fishers, and laborers.

The sixth model is that of a dwelling group of the Great Plains Indians. Here dwelt formerly Siouan, Algonquian, Kiowan, and Shoshonean tribes in tents of buffalo and deer hide. A set, of poles lashed together at the top, a cone-shaped covering over that, held down by pegs driven into the ground about the edge, constituted the dwelling. The fireplace was in the center, and the furniture consisted of abundance of skins for beds and a few ladles or spoons of wood of horn for dishes. Cooking was done by roasting and stone boiling, and pemmican or dried buffalo meat was laid up for time of need. The men were hunters and warriors, and the women were skilled at all the peaceful arts that grew out of the chase.

A dwelling of the Wichita Indians is the subject of the seventh model. This tribe is of Caddoan stock, and formerly inhabited northern Texas. Their dwellings are generally cone shaped and dome shaped. The frame is of poles tied together like latticework. Into this bundles of grass are woven in rows, imbricated so as to shed the rain. The group shows a finished house, one in process of erection, and a communal shelter supported on poles. The Wichita have become agriculturists, and dry their corn on hides or frames. They have also adopted the metal cooking- vessels of the whites. The method of thatching is to be compared with that of the Papago in Sonora, Mexico.

The eighth model represents a dwelling group of the Pawnee Indians, a type of the Missouri Valley region. The Pawnee formerly lived in Nebraska, on the Platte River. They belong to the same family as the Arikarees in North Dakota and the Caddoes in Louisiana and eastern Texas. Although their home was in the country of the skin-tent dwellers, they continued to build the ancient northern type of earth-covered abode with slightly sunken floor. The frame consists of logs set on end in a circle and connected with outer timbers. The root is of radiating poles, rafters covered with brush and then with a thick layer of earth and sod. From the circular chamber a passage several feet in length leads outward, forming tire, doorway. This type of dwelling is also interesting in that it is suggestive of the origin of many of the smaller mounds in different parts of the Mississippi Valley.

The ninth model of the series represents an ancient cliff dwelling of the Pueblo country. The arid region of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico abounds in canyons and plateaus, arid the rocky walls have keen carved by the elements into many fanciful shapes. Here also were formed shelves, shelters, and caverns, and these were extensively utilized by the ancient tribes for dwelling purposes, from which circumstances they derive their name - Cliff Dwellers. The fronts of the recesses were closed with stone walls, and partition walls divided the space into rooms of various sizes. These houses were reached by natural pathways, by steps cut into the rock, and by wooden ladders, and they served for defense as well as for abode. By the remains of industrial arts found in the cliff structures, their builders are shown to have been the ancestors of part or all of the modern Pueblo tribes.

[Ed. Note: click on any image for a larger view.]

A dwelling group of the Papago Indians is shown in the tenth model. The type is that of the Sonoran region. The Papagpo Indians are of Piman stock, inhabiting Pima County, Arizona, and the State of Sonora, Mexico. They dwell in dome-shaped grass houses, in which a frame of mesquite poles is fastened together with yucca twine, covered with long grass and mud, and protected with stalks of the ocotilla. Other outbuildings are the kitchen circle, the pole-supported shelter, and the ruined house showing structural features. The food of the Papago is chiefly vegetal, the staple being the beans and pods of the mesquite tree. They are clever potters. The Papagp wear little costume, the modern dress being of European or modified European pattern. The men formerly wrapped skirls about their loins, and the women were clad in fringed petticoats of shredded bark and leaves.

The eleventh model illustrates the home of the Goajiros Indians of Venezuela, a type of the Orinoco ethnic province. The discoverers of the coast of South America were astonished to find tribes living in huts built out over the water, and so they gave to this region the name of Venezuela, or Little Venice. The huts, only a few feet square, stood among the trees, on platforms constructed by interlacing the stems. The houses later were supported on piles or trunks of trees sunk in the water and standing 5 or 6 feet high. In the center of each platform was a pile of earth, and on this the fire was built and kept continually burning. Over tire platform was suspended a low roof thatched with palm loaves. Access to the house was had by means of a notched tree trunk. The natives moved about in dugout canoes, and when the water was high one of these could he seen tied to every notched ladder. Little clothing was worn, but there was much decoration of the person with feathers and seeds, and the bones and teeth of small animals.

The twelfth model illustrates the houses and human life of the Tehuelche tribe Patagonia.

Fabulous stories are told of their stature. They are, in fact, among the tallest people in the world. Their food is derived mainly from the chase. They clothe themselves in skins of animals, and their women are expert not only in dressing hides, but also in decorating them with patterns of various colors.

For a home the Tehuelches cover a framework of sticks with a number of skins together. These shelters, generally open in front, are called toldos, and the furniture consists of only a few rude appliances.

In this exhibition are shown a tent in process of construction, a finished tent, and a temporary shelter. Men and Women are engaged in the various industrial activities of the tribe - dressing hides, curing meat, and erecting the tent. This group forms one of a series designed to set forth the dwelling and home life of native tribes in the Western Hemisphere.