Adair, in his History of the Southern Indians, says they daub their houses with tough mortar mixed with dry grass; that they build winter or hot houses after the manner of Dutch ovens, covered with clay. Again:
They are lathed with cane and plastered with mud from bottom to top, within and without, with a good covering of straw.
This seems to mean that the entire building was plastered with mud, and then covered with grass to shed the rainfall.
In a mound in Arkansas County, Arkansas (Twelfth Ann. Rept. Bur. Ethn., p. 231)—
About 2 feet under the surface was a thick layer of burnt clay, which probably formed the roof. In tracing out the circumference a hard clay floor was found beneath, and between the two several inches of ashes, but no skeletons. There were a great many pieces of broken dishes so situated as to lead one to believe they were on top of the house at the time it was burned.
The fact that no skeletons or utensils were discovered on the floor finds its most reasonable explanation in the supposition that the inmates, finding their abode to be unsafe, moved out and took their possessions with them. This would account, also, for the absence of such remains in similar mounds farther north. The abundance of pottery fragments found in this case, and in many others, may mean only that these were worked in as a part of the clay roofing. They would be of some service in holding the clay in place in wet weather.
It is quite probable that the continuous, though fragmentary, layer of burned clay on the floor so often noted is due in part at least to the material forming the roof. The walls would be more apt to fall outward than inward, and would be more liable to crumble than to fall as an intact mass. In fact, this is clearly shown by the statement (p. 229) that in certain house sites in St. Francis County, Arkansas,
The edges are all higher and have a thicker layer of this [burned] material than the inner areas.
Further, in describing explorations of certain "hut rings" at "Beckwith's Fort" in Mississippi County, Missouri (p. 187), the report states that they are
from 30 to 50 feet in diameter, measuring to the tops of their rims, which are raised slightly above the natural level. The depth of the depression at the center is from 2 to 3 feet. Near the center, somewhat covered with earth, are usually found the baked earth, charcoal, and ashes of ancient fires, and around these and beneath the rims [that is, the surrounding ring or embankment] split bones and fresh-water shells. Often mingled with this refuse material are rude stone implements and fragments of pottery.