Sheds not its glorious ray
Let there be light.”
—Marriott.
Reference has been made to the old type of heathen house, built of split cedar boards bound together with poles and withes or ropes made of cedar bark. The roof was formed of slabs of cedar, held down by large stones or by poles extending from one end to the other. Later on the roofs were made of rafters, on which were laid “shakes”—large split shingles—after the manner of the early settlers’ barns.
Under this roof, and immediately over the beds, were great sheets of cedar bark or large rush mats, placed thus better to protect the beds if the roof should leak, which it often did. There was no window, no door, except a board propped up against the entrance; no chimney, the smoke finding its way out through the cracks in the sides and roof; no floor except the hard beaten earth.
These houses, which varied in size from buildings as large as a huge barn to a small shack, were usually placed near the sea-shore or on the bank of a river. The larger ones usually accommodated a number of families, sometimes as many as eight or ten, and the building was divided by low partitions into sections for each family.
Besides this type of house they constructed for winter use an underground hut, usually spoken of as a “keekwillie house”—“keekwillie” being Chinook for deep or underground. A deep pit was dug in the ground and stout poles were placed leaning together like a tepee, with a hole at the centre. The earth was heaped up around and upon the top, very much as eastern farmers cover their potato pits. The hole in the top was the only doorway, the only passageway for light, and the only opening for the smoke to escape.
A notched pole was placed up the side of the roof and another protruded from the interior through the opening in the top. By these two poles the occupants passed in and out of this dwelling. You had to be careful, if your clothing was made of any inflammable material, in passing through the opening in the top, so close was it to the fire built below.
In olden days whole villages lived in these keekwillie or sweat houses during the winter, which were united by underground passages. In times of war they were thus able to find shelter from an enemy by passing from one to another.
In the summer camps the people lived under shelters made of large rush-mats, open on one side. In front of this opening the camp-fire was built. Of course, now many of them live in canvas tents or “sail-houses,” as they call them, “sail” being the Chinook equivalent for cloth of any kind. Many others of them live in small frame houses.