Interior view showing the wattle walls, major support posts, and stairway of graduated logs. Pit is 5.38m x 3.12m and .89m deep (18'x10' and 3' deep).
St. Mary's Longhouse Project, funded by the Maryland Humaities Council and Maryland Commission on Indian Affairs, St. Mary's City, Maryland. Built in 1984 for their 350 year anniversary.
Late Woodland Longhouse based on the great Neck site at the Virginia beach research center for Archaeology. Archway poles are constructed from cedar using an arch jig to bend them into form.
Schematic drawing of the PAMUNKEY INDIAN RESERVATION THATCH HOUSE.
A= Inner thatch lock pole
B= Lower thatch lock pole
C= Middle thatch lock pole
D= Upper thatch lock pole
E= Outer thatch lock pole
I= Thatch Row I
II= Thatch Row II
III= Thatch Row III
IV= Upper Thatch Row
V= Longitudinal Thatch Bundle along peak
VI= Eve Bundle
THE OLD RAG SHELTER -a Generic Woodland Structure built in 1972.
THE FLINT RUN PALEO-INDIAN HOUSE CONSTRUCTION
Overhead view of the floor plan, staked out exactly as the original site plan.
Thunderbird Museum and Archaeological park, Front Royal, VA 1985.
Pounding holes for pole placement
Finished frame from same view as above.
Completed frame showing insulated wattle wall that deflects drafts from the entry, and pile of bark lashing material in foreground.
The Oldest Dwelling in the U.S.Reconstruction of a 10,000 year old, Late Clovis period dwelling excavated in the Shenandoah Valley in 1971. It is a reconstruction, duplicating the exact floor plan, using replicas of Clovis tools associated with the site. The structure measures 19' x 34.5' x 10' high. (5.8 x 10.5 x 3.0m).
Completed frame with partial covering of deer hides.
Clovis biface axe hafted in elk antler handle.
MORE THAN JUST A SHELTER
THE MANITOGA WIGWAM ENCAMPMENT
By Susan Eirich-Dehne
* * *
It came into being, as things, true things do, because of an urge rising from within - an urgency which, if attended to, will begin to crystallize into an idea one becomes aware of with a dawning recognition and then a shocking realization that it might be possible to make childhood magic come true. An idea which, if put into action, would get results we could not envision - in this case from a simple urge to a complete Prehistoric Native American encampment of museum quality, an authentic wigwam, an outside sheltered hearth, and areas for cooking, fiber processing, tool-making, pottery, and hide tanning. Supplies and beautifully crafted tools, weapons, mats and pots are stored around the encampment, making it ready to move in and live at a moments notice. A place to accommodate programs for professional (and un professional) “primitives” and seekers, graduate students, artists, potters, weavers, knappers, kids and families - fabulous aboriginal feasts and revelry.
It came into being through using our ancient brain until we came upon what we sought; feeling our way towards others on the same search, recognizing them with relief and delight -others who have explored a different dimension that will add to the emerging form and clarity of what we are creating.
It came about by following an inner quest, down deep into ourselves; down deeper through time to inner recesses that lead to a communion, a sensed knowledge of our ancestors and back even farther through the evolution of our animal heritage carried in the very structure of our brain and at the same time a searching forward and outward.
And because it came into being by following something within, it was essential that it be done well and beautifully, be authentic down to the last detail and tinniest process. Anything else would be a betrayal.
Living and experimenting in this setting speaks to an eons-old part of ourselves as we explore along lines laid down for us in our bones, genes and brain; a part, connected back through time to the mainstream of life larger than a family or culture. It touches so deep and true that it grabs you after exposure of only just a few hours. When doing a follow-up visit to their classroom in Brooklyn 6 months after a field trip to the wigwam, ghetto kids rushed toward me with tears in their eyes. I was stunned by the reception, surrounded by a crush of 20 kids all trying to reach out and touch and hug me - and I’d been with them only a few hours. I was a representative of something wondrous and real in their lives. The teacher noted “after the trip to Manitoga the children would go home and, without even letting you know, begin to come in with their own artifacts that they made. They found things on their own in the library and brought them to class -they talked about it with their parents. You know something incredible happened when their creativity was so stimulated”.
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Site illustrations by Errett Callahan
For those of us fortunate enough to be able to experience this life for more than a field trip, the sensibilities sharpen and intensify as we settle into the culture of the wild - the culture we evolved from, and it is satisfying.
From a quest originating in the old part of our brain, spokes of fascination radiate out, different for each of us at the encampment, coming to fruition in the graceful shapes of a functional pot or the sharp, clear, well-defined edges of a fine stone knife as we followed the details of a technology - different spokes, all interconnecting in a larger circle of meaning and function; strands of seekings, meanings, and experience interweaving, contributing to a feeling of wholeness, “rightness” and community.
Exterior wraps hold bark panels in place.
As we worked there was a natural development of the encampment... needs emerged... a separate area for cooking, for potting, for working with sharp edged flint, a storage place for tools...human needs...needs our ancestors must have had. As we looked for materials, made and used the tools, we understood more why they made things the way they did, and how they did. As we applied our intelligence to the tasks at hand we came closer to knowing how our forebearers might have thought, felt, figured things out; closer to their own delight in discovery and the leaps in evolution it led to as they applied their intelligence; closer to a sense of our own place in the evolution of life and culture.
With people going about their business fully absorbed body, mind and sole, there were moments of total peace and harmony - with one's self, one's companions and with the life around us; in the soil, the trees, the air - moments when we were one with the movement and pulse of life.
The taste of how it is possible to live left a permanent yearning for that seamless existence, a need for it never to be forgotten, to somehow be integrated into the rest of one's life forever informing and affecting it - there were days spent in the woods searching for the right woods and grasses and stones; Time spent digging in stream banks on hands and knees feeling for clay. There was the bittersweet sensuality of the sound and feel in peeling the living bark skin from a bleeding tree, peeling it off as easily as pulling back the skin of freshly killed prey. The living breath of the tree not quite gone, swearing that the sacrifice would not be in vain, that each part of the tree would be respectfully used. As we set the cedar poles in an upright circle ready to be bent and tied, the magic of a new presence - a shelter form - added to the landscape. While debarking poles with a sharpened shell, discovering the way different barks peel, smell, and feel we get a sense of the time and skills involved in living and building in the old way; the detail that makes up the whole; the spring and scent of hemlock boughs underfoot insulating the floor of the wigwam from the winter's cold in the ground; joining companions by the hearth-fire in the evening, around a steaming clay pot; sharing the days discoveries, sitting together in silence watching the soft green glow of phosphorescent molds, listening to the sounds of the night - a flying squirrel dropping acorns in its passage through the air, the soft hoot of an owl calling, the silent whoosh of wings,finally retiring to the wigwam, waking in the deep of the night to sof
tly glowing coals, and the sigh of the wind through the hemlocks signaling an approaching storm; odors of a damp night woods wafting in on breezes; looking up at the shadows cast by the wattled shelves; the rush of the creek in the distance - sounds, rhythms, textures, smells - unbearably rich and satisfying as we feel the stream of time flow through us soon to pass into the future as we live out our lives...sleepily pushing wood further into the fire, watching the flicker of the flames reflect on the warm golden walls and drifting off in fragrance, beauty and peace, to awaken to the sounds of the dawn...
Interior view shows insulating thatch and main frame.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENCAMPMENT
By Susan Eirich-Dehne
* * *
Board Member Susan Eirich-Dehne was executive director of Manitoga Nature Center in Garrison, N. Y. from 1981-1988. Manitoga was the former estate of Russell Wright who turned his house and land into a nature center in hopes of “bringing to American culture an intimacy with nature”. For a more detailed description of construction and research, feel free to write to the author. While the wigwam itself only took a few weeks to build, the entire development of the encampment, from seasonal collection of materials to completion of the inside and outside areas and development of programs took place over a period of four years.
The majority of the development of the encampment was done under the supervision and direction of Errett (“if you're gonna make it, then make it beautiful”) Callahan. The actual work was done by Errett, the author, and the Manitoga staff, with support from community and workshop volunteers. There were no shortcuts- “but we could dig this ditch so much faster with a metal shovel instead of a deer scapula”-”yes, but that wasn’t the way it was done, and by the end you will have learned to use the scapula most efficiently and gotten a sense of the time involved” - it offered the benefit of being able to introduce people to prehistoric technology in an immediate, sensual way.
Programming was done by the author in conjunction with Maria-Louise Sidoroff (pottery and cooking), Alice Ross (cooking), Pam Weiland (fibers, cordage, basketry), Carol Hart (cordage and basketry), Susan Miller (school education), David Winston (Native American lore and ethnobotany), and Errett Callahan (flintknapping, tool construction, and general construction).
* * *
We first spent several days walking the land to select a site that could have actually been used as a site for a moderately extensive encampment; level, protected, near water. We selected a shaded glade on a level spot in a hemlock forest. Behind the site ran a seasonal rivulet for immediate use, and a two minute walk down the hill brought you to a lovely gurgling year-round stream with waterfalls and cool-clear ponds ideal for washing pots or collecting water. Some of the materials had already been prepared; the stone axe, the hickory cordage, the phragmites reeds cut with a sharpened shell and stored the previous year. We began the process in early spring, searching for straight-slender cedar trees suitable for a frame - cedar was the wood of choice because of the dampness of the forest floor. After locating, trimming, cutting, and dragging them back, we used a hickory spike and mallet to pound post holes to receive the cedar saplings. When we finished we had a rough circle of cedar trees standing straight up from the ground. We then bent two sapling from opposite sides of the ring, and tied them together with the inner bark of hickory - two more from opposite sides, until dome-like frame was completed. Tall slender maple trees about two inches in diameter (chosen for their flexibility) were used as horizontal lock poles and fastened in rings around the cedar frame with hickory cordage. Phragmites reeds were spread evenly around the frame and tied in place with more ribs and hickory cordage to the inner frame. These hollow reeds served as superb dead air insulation both in winter and summer in addition to adding wonderful golden warmth to the inner walls.
In late spring, when the sap was rising in that part of the country, large slabs of tulip poplar bark were collected, pried loose from the inner wood with sharpened green sticks and flexible deer ribs (the timing had to be just right - when tried at a later time of year the bark was almost impossible to pry off without cracking). The fresh and pliable bark was carried back to the building site and weighted down with stones to flatten it down while still flexible, until ready to use. These slabs were laid on the frame starting at the bottom and fastened with lock poles of maple (the hickory cordage was poked through the layer and fastened to the inner frame). The bark was shingled, all the way to the top, leaving a small space for the smoke hole. When completed a man could jump up and down on the top and feel the solidity of the construction. When complete the shelter was as dry as a bone in summer storms, and a small cooking fire was enough to keep it warm on winter nights.
Next we arranged the place for living; sleeping platforms (necessary because of the dampness of the forest floor), digging the post holes with fire-hardened sticks; making the wattled shelves, the drying poles, hooks, the inside hearth with a stone tripod to support the clay cooking pots, the deep bed of hemlock boughs on the floor in winter for insulation from cold, the thick cattail mats to lay on top of the sleeping platforms, gathering a ready supply of kindling and small firewood, a fire drill, black birch bark for tea and dried herbs for cooking.
Expanding outward from the wigwam were the outside sheltered hearth and working area, and the flintknapping, fiber processing, potting, cooking, and hide processing areas. The hearth area, protected under a bark roof and demarcated by logs for sitting, had conveniences such as cattail mats for kneeling while working, hooks and poles for hanging and drying, safe areas for pot storage, a stone tripod on one end of the hearth for pot cooking, a stone lining on the other end for other forms of cooking, hide pot holders, hooks, dipping gourds, -all the details that one needs when living the family life. Supplies were stored around the encampment in appropriate places-wood for fire and construction, bone and stone, sinew, and clay.
The encampment was of a generic form documented to be in use at the time of European contact, and reaching back several thousand years. Tools were replicated documenting human progress, starting with the atlatl and early biface up to the Late Woodland Culture existing at the time of contact, with its pots, bows and arrows, etc.
THE CADDO HOUSE RECONSTRUCTION
By Scooter Cheatham
* * *
The Caddo House sits as sentinal for all experimental projects to follow.
During the 17th century French and Spanish explorers traveled extensively throughout the south. From their journals, and reports attributed directly to Coronado, we have a vivid picture of what the distinctive houses of the Caddoan Confederations looked like. The unique manner in which they were built was also recorded in great detail. When a new house was to be built the Caddi (village leader) went to various families that were to participate in the construction. A sample of the main poles was taken to each as a model of what they were to provide. On the day of the raising, each family arrived on site with their pole as well as all the lashing, horizontal bands, and subordinate poles needed to build the house from their assigned position in the circle. In this manner, the construction of the house would proceed upward without workers having to move from their spot. The Caddi placed the first vertical pole. Workers climbed this pole and fastened a horizontal bar on which two workers sat in a seesaw fashion. Form this position they were able to cast a rope and lasso the tip of each pole and draw it to the middle. This communal work progressed in an exquisitely orderly manner and was completed in one day. The resident family did no building, but was responsible for feeding their guests.
The Caddoan house reconstruction conducted in Texas by Scooter Cheatham followed closely the methods of the past. The structure was duplicated from the post molds of Domicile #10 at the Davis Site. 3 mounds of a large Confederated Caddoan Center dating back to the 8-12th century were excavated here. The house was 25' in diameter, 30' high and contained 4 interior living levels. Tools for the reconstruction were prepared beginning in September, harvesting of the thatch to
ok over two weeks in October, the poles cut, peeled and placed in position by the 1st of November, and the final touches were being added shortly before Christmas day.
The Caddoan House Reconstruction was one of the most ambitious projects related to the technology of prehistoric building techniques yet undertaken in this country. Information from the research and data collected on the project has yet to be published. This brief overview is included in the Bulletin as an attempt to illustrate the quality of work that has been done, and attempt to recognize the contribution of the workers to primitive technology.
The house was commissioned by the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife for the Caddoan Mounds State Historic Site, 6 miles south of Alta, Texas. The tools are on display at the site interpretive center. It has withstood a tornado and 10 years of exposure to the elements and vandals, however, it is scheduled to be burned this spring (1994).
ANATOMY OF A HOUSE
RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT*
* * *
*A Preliminary Outline Of The Construction Process Used In
Reconstructing A Caddo House In Fall 1981 - Scooter Cheatham
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