The sides of the projecting doorway—that is, the spaces between the roof and the sloping doorway timbers—are filled in with small sticks of the required length. Sometimes the ends of these sticks are bound in place with twigs of yucca, being made fast to the door-frame, but generally they are merely set in or made to rest against the outer roof covering. Usually the larger timbers are roughly dressed on the sides toward the interior of the hut, and the smaller poles also are stripped of bark and rough hewn.
The entire structure is next covered with cedar bark; all the interstices are filled with it, and an upper or final layer is spread with some regularity and smoothness. Earth is then thrown on from base to apex to a thickness of about six inches, but enough is put on to make the hut perfectly wind and water proof. This operation finishes the house, and usually there are enough volunteers to complete the work in a day.
It is customary to make a kind of recess on the western side of the hut by setting out the base of the poles next to the west timber some 8 to 15 inches beyond the line. This arrangement is usually placed next to and on the south side of the west timber, and all the poles for a distance of 3 or 4 feet are set out. The offset thus formed is called the “mask recess,” and when a religious ceremony is performed in the hogán, the shaman or medicine-man hangs a skin or cloth before it and deposits there his masks and fetiches. This recess, of greater or less dimensions, is made in every large hogán, but in many of the smaller ones it is omitted. Its position and general character are shown in the ground plan, [plate XC]. In the construction of a hogán all the proceedings are conducted on a definite, predetermined plan, and the order sketched above is that ordinarily followed, but nothing of a ceremonial nature is introduced until after the conclusion of the work of construction.
[SUMMER HUTS OR SHELTERS]
The rules which govern the building of a regular hogán or winter house, although clearly defined and closely adhered to, do not apply to the summer huts or shelters. These outnumber the former and are found everywhere on the reservation, but they are most abundant in the mountain regions and in those places where horticultural operations can be carried on.
These structures are of all kinds and of all degrees of finish, although certain well-defined types, ancient in their origin, are still closely adhered to when the conditions permit. But under other circumstances the rudest and most primitive shelters are constructed, some of them certainly not so high in the scale of construction as an ordinary bird’s nest. There is a certain interest that attaches to these rude attempts, as they exhibit the working of the human mind practically untrammeled by precedent.
Perhaps the most primitive and simple shelter the Navaho builds is a circle or part-circle of green boughs, generally pine or cedar. Half an hour of work by two men with axes is all that is required to erect one of these. A site having been selected, a tree is felled on the windward side, and the branches trimmed from it are piled up to a height of 4 or 5 feet on three sides of a circle 15 or 20 feet in diameter. A fire is built in the center and the natives dispose themselves around it. Blankets are thrown over outstanding branches here and there, affording an abundance of shade in the hot summer days when even a little shade is agreeable. Rude as this shelter is, it is regarded by the Navaho as sufficient when no better is available. During the recent construction of some irrigating ditches on the reservation, when from 50 to 100 men were employed at one time, this form of shelter was the only one used, although in several instances the work was carried on in one place for five or six weeks. Shelters of this kind, however, are possible only in a wooded region, and are built only to meet an emergency, as when a man is away from home and there are no hogáns in the vicinity where he can stop.
Another form, scarcely less rude, is sometimes found in localities temporarily occupied for grazing or for horticulture. It consists of a circle of small branches, sometimes of mere twigs, with the butts stuck into the ground, and not over 2½ or 3 feet high. The circle is broken by a narrow entrance way on one side. This form of shelter, hardly as high as a man’s waist, does little more than mark the place where a family have thrown down their blankets and other belongings, but it may afford some protection against drifting sand. Shelters of this type are occupied several months at a time. They are often seen on the sandy bottom lands of Canyon Chelly and in other regions of like character, and the same sites are sometimes occupied several years in succession.