The details of a Barabara.
Inside erect another set of posts, setting each one opposite the outside ones and about a foot and a half or two feet farther in, or maybe less distance, according to the material one is using. Next set some posts for the hallway or entrance, which will be the door-jambs, and you are ready to build up the log roof. Do this by first setting the rail securely on the two side-posts on the right and left of the building; then secure the back plate on the two back posts at the rear of the building, next resting a long log over the side rails at the front of the building. The door-posts, of course, must be enough taller than the two end posts to allow for the thickness of the log, so that the front log will rest upon their top. Next put your two corner logs on, and your outside rail is complete. Build the inside rail in the same manner; then continue to build up with the logs as shown in the diagram until you have a frame like that in [Fig. 145.] [Fig. 147] shows the inside of the house and the low doorway, and [Fig. 148] shows the slanting walls. This frame is supposed to be covered with splits or shakes (Figs. [147] and [148]), but, as in all pioneer structures, if shakes, splits, and clapboards are unobtainable, use the material at hand—birch bark, spruce bark, tar paper, old tin roofing, tent-cloth, or sticks, brush, ferns, weeds, or round sticks, to cover it as you did with the Pawnee hogan (Figs. [42] and [43]). Then cover it with browse, or thatch it with hay or straw and hold the thatch in place with poles or sticks, as shown in [Fig. 146.] The barabara may also be covered with earth, sod, or mud.
This sort of a house, if built with planks or boards nailed securely to the rafters and covered with earth and sod, will make a splendid cave house for boys and a playhouse for children on the lawn, and it may be covered with green growing sod so as to have the appearance of an ornamental mound. The instinct of the cave-dweller is deeply implanted in the hearts of boys, and every year we have a list of fatal accidents caused by the little fellows digging caves in sand-banks or banks of gravel which frequently fall in and bury the little troglodytes, but they will be safe in a barabara. The shack is ventilated by a chimney hole in the roof as shown by [Fig. 146.] This hole should be protected in a playhouse. The framework is a good one to use in all parts of the country for more or less permanent camps, but the long entrance and low doorway are unnecessary except in a cold climate or to add to the mystery of the cave house for children. It is a good form for a dugout for a root house or cyclone cellar.
XXIII
THE NAVAJO HOGAN, HORNADAY DUGOUT, AND SOD HOUSE
If the reader has ever built little log-cabin traps he knows just how to build a Navajo hogan or at least the particular Navajo hogan shown by Figs. [148] and [150]. This one is six-sided and may be improved by notching the logs (Figs. [162], [164], [165]) and building them up one on top of the other, dome-shaped, to the required height. After laying some rafters for the roof and leaving a hole for the chimney the frame is complete. In hot countries no chimney hole is left in the roof, because the people there do not build fires inside the house; they go indoors to keep cool and not to get warm; but the Navajo hogan also makes a good cold-country house in places where people really need a fire. Make the doorway by leaving an opening ([Fig. 150]) and chinking the logs along the opening to hold them in place until the door-jamb is nailed or pegged to them, and then build a shed entranceway ([Fig. 153]), which is necessary because the slanting sides of the house with an unroofed doorway have no protection against the free entrance of dust and rain or snow, and every section of this country is subject to visits from one of these elements. The house is covered with brush, browse, or sod.