[118] P. 345, ibid.
[119] Teit, (a), p. 203.
[120] Spinden, p. 200.
[121] Spinden, p. 181.
[122] Spinden, pp. 190 and 194.
[123] Spinden, p. 178.
Habitations.
Semi-subterranean House Sites. Sites of ancient semi-subterranean winter houses, modern lodges and what may possibly have been a shell heap were seen and photographed by us in this region. Two of the examples of the remains of semi-subterranean house sites found here, as shown in [Fig. 2, Plate IV], had stones on top of the surrounding embankments. Although on the top of the embankments of the remains of similar underground winter houses in the Thompson River region,[124] we saw no stones other than those of the soil. I am informed by Mr. James Teit that such are occasionally to be found there also, but that these stones are generally found only in those places where boulders were removed during the excavation for the houses. He was told that it was the custom to place these boulders around the base of the house. Two semi-subterranean winter house sites, as mentioned on pp. [7] and [15], may be seen on the flat along the north side of the Yakima River about a mile below the mouth of the Naches. One of these may be seen in [Fig. 2, Plate III].[125] There are water-worn boulders in and on the embankments surrounding them. These boulders were probably uncovered during the excavation for the house. The holes are situated within twenty-five feet of the river and between it and the Yakima Ridge which rises by perpendicular cliffs, almost immediately behind these winter house sites. In fact, the photograph reproduced in the figure was taken from the hill side north of the pit and just up stream from the cliffs. They are on a little terrace about three feet high which gives them the appearance of having been connected by a ridge. The hole shown in the figure measured from the top of the ridge was nine feet deep. The top of the bank measured at points on the flat between it and the river, up stream from it, and between it and the hill, was four feet, two feet, and two feet, four inches, respectively. Averaging these measurements, the height of the embankment above the level is thirty-three and one third inches. The hole was so near the level of the river, and was so deep that when we visited it on June 18, 1903, which was during high water, the waters of the Yakima had soaked through the terrace and were about two feet deep in the bottom of the hole where it was about eight feet in diameter, measuring north and south. Measuring in the same direction the diameter of the top of the hole from points inside of the surrounding ridge was twenty-two feet, from points on top thirty-three feet, from points outside forty-seven feet, and from points outside of the wash from the ridge fifty-one feet. These measurements give us twelve and a half feet as an approximate width of the ridge or fourteen and a half feet if we measure from the bottom of the wash. The two sites mentioned on pp. [7] and [16] were also examined and photographed by us. One is plainly shown from the north of west in [Fig. 2, Plate IV]. They are located on a high terrace on the north side of the Naches River about one and a half miles above its mouth. There are angular rocks on each encircling ridge. Some of the large angular rocks found on the embankment of this ridge, may also have been dug out during the excavation for the house if such rocks are found under the surface of the soil in this terrace. Similar rocks are scattered about on the surface so thickly that it must have been necessary to remove a number of them from the site where the house was to stand and possibly others that were scattered about may have been put up around the base of the house in order to clear the immediate vicinity especially since many of them are disagreeably sharp angular fragments.[126]
Measuring the site best shown in the figure, east and west, the level floor inside the extreme wash from the ridge is nine feet in diameter, the rocks fallen from the ridge thirteen feet, the inner edge of the ridge 20 feet, the points on the top of the embankment, twenty-five and a half feet; the outside of the rocks, thirty feet; the extremes of the embankment thirty-five feet. These measurements north and south are respectively, nine feet, thirteen and a half feet, sixteen and a half feet, twenty-one feet, twenty-five and a half feet and thirty-three feet. Judging from these measurements, the original dimensions were probably thirty feet by twenty-five and a half feet over all, twenty-five and a half feet by twenty-one feet for the top of the embankment, twenty by sixteen and a half feet for the inside of the embankment and sixteen and a half feet by fifteen feet for the bottom of the floor. These measurements are also east and west and north and south respectively. The present depth of the hole below the top of the rocks is twenty-nine inches and from the top of the earth embankment is twenty-six and twenty-one inches. The measurements were taken east and west and north and south respectively. The slope of the hill from north to south and its attendant wash, of course, affect the north and south measurements, while the east and west measurements are probably near the original dimensions. Contiguous to this hole on the south, or in the sage brush to the right in the figure, is the other site. It is on the slope of the hill and not so clearly shown in the Plate. This hole measures ten and a half feet by eleven feet across the level floor inside; thirteen by fourteen feet inside of the rocks; nineteen by eighteen feet at the top of the embankment twenty-three by twenty-three feet outside of the rocks; and twenty-seven by twenty-six feet outside of the embankment; fourteen and eighteen inches in depth from the top of the rocks and ten and twelve inches from the top of the earth, the measurements being taken east and west and north and south respectively.