and settlers, we naturally conclude that this class
of construction was very common at all known periods of native American
history.

The constructors of native dwellings generally employed pliable branches
or saplings, which are bound together with vines, twigs, and other more
pliable woody forms. John Smith says of the Indians of Virginia[1]
that--

Their houses are built like our Arbors, of small young
springs bowed and tyed, and so close covered with Mats, or
the barkes of trees very handsomely, that notwithstanding
either winde, raine, or weather, they are as warm as stooues,
but very smoaky, yet at the toppe of the house there is a
hole made for the smoake to goe into right over the fire.

[1] Hist. Virginia, John Smith. Richmond, 1819, vol. I, p.
130.

Butel-Dumont also, in describing the dwellings of the Natchez Indians of
the lower Mississippi region, speaks of the door of an Indian cabin
"made of dried canes fastened and interlaced on two other canes placed
across."[2]

A singular use of wattle work is mentioned by Lafitau. He states that
the young men, when going through the ordeal of initiation on attaining
their majority, were placed apart in--

An inclosure very strongly built, made expressly for this
purpose, one of which I saw in 1694, which belonged to the
Indians of Paumauenkie. It was in the form of a sugar loaf and
was open on all sides like a trellis to admit the air.[3]

Of a somewhat similar nature was the construction of biers described by
Butel-Dumont. Speaking of the Mobilians, he says:

When their chief is dead they proceed as follows: At 15 or 20
feet from his cabin they erect a kind of platform raised
about 41/2 feet from the ground. This is composed of four
large forked poles of oak wood planted in the earth, with
others placed across; this is covered with canes bound and
interlaced so as to resemble greatly the bed used by the
natives.[4]

According to John Lawson, similarly constructed "hurdles" were in use
among the Carolina Indians.

[Illustration: 1.--Fish weir of the Virginia Indiana (after Hariot).]

The tide-water tribes of the Atlantic coast region made very frequent
use of fish weirs, which were essentially textile in character. John
Smith mentions their use in Virginia, and Hariot gives a number of
plates in which the weirs are delineated. The cut here given (figure 1)
is from Hariot's plat