HABITATIONS. 145

ent from their summer shanties. These are the hogans, or houses properly
so called. The hogan is their national and only permanent habitation. Nothing
palatial about it, however: simply a conical structure, the mainstay of which
is three short pifion trees whose forked smaller ends interlock so as to form
the apex which, being left uncovered, does duty as a chimney. Two small
forked uprights connected by a horizontal stick about four feet from the ground
are set to serve as the lintel and door posts of an entrance which must face
directly the east. Stout poles and branches then fill up the two other sides
of the hut in a circular order, which are further covered with weeds, bark or
grass and earth. In the doorway an old blanket or skin hangs down, which
reminds the comparative Sociologist of the felt suspended with the same end
in view in front of the entrances of the Mongols’ habitations!, and the
salmon skins sewn together which serve a like purpose in connection with
the winter huts of the Carriers.

The average dimensions of a hogan are about fourteen feet in diameter.
A light excavation of the ground floor contributes to give it some seven feet
in height. Slabs of stone also enter occasionally in the make up of those
hovels. Nay, Schoolcraft goes so far as to give, but wrongly, this style as
the national “Navaho wigwam” 2, According to the same author “the fire for
cooking is external”.

The Carrier winter hut was more elaborate in
its construction. But, Strange to say, while the
hogan is the only habitation of the Navahoes that
can claim any degree of permanency, their sum-
mer shelters being hastily built and as speedily
abandoned, the winter residences of the northerners
lasted only one season and their summer lodges
remained in use as long as they were in good
repair. New winter quarters were prepared every
year in such spots as
promised to yield the
best supply of fire-
wood, a consideration
not to be overlooked
with an inclement cli-

Fig. 16. mate like that of the
Carrier habitat.

Four posts a supported two longitudinal beams or plates 5, over which
split poles of spruce or aspen were laid in a slanting position from the out-
side, thus forming a roof without walls, the split sides resting immediately

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* Cf. Huc’s “Christianity in China, Tartary”, etc., vol. I, p. 178.
2 “Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge”, vol. III, p. 70.
10