It reminded me of a fence in an American village where I once lived, that an enterprising fruit-grower had put around his orchard,—a structure of upright pickets, and each picket armed with a nail in the top. One night four individuals bent on stealing apples, were confronted by the owner and a bull-dog and forced to surrender or leap the fence. Three of them were “treed” by the dog; the fourth sprang over the fence, but left the seat of his trousers and the rear section of his shirt, the latter bearing in indelible ink the name of the wearer. The circumstantial evidence was so strong against him that he did not attempt an alibi, and he was unable to sit down for nearly a fortnight.
CHAPTER XIV.
I took the first opportunity to enter a Goldee house and study the customs of the people. A Goldee dwelling for permanent habitation has four walls and a roof. The sides and ends are of hewn boards or small poles made into a close fence, which is generally double and has a space six or eight inches wide filled with grass and leaves. Inside and out the dwelling is plastered with mud, and the roofs are thatch or bark held in place by poles and stones. Sometimes they are entirely of poles. The doors are of hewn plank, and can be fastened on the inside.
The dwellings are from fifteen to forty feet square, according to the size of the family. In one I found a grandfather and his descendants; thirty persons at least. There are usually two windows, made of fish skin or thin paper over lattices. Some windows were closed with mats that could be rolled up or lowered at will.
The fire-place has a deep pan or kettle fixed over it, and there is room for a pot suspended from a rafter. Around the room is a divan, or low bench of boards or wicker work, serving as a sofa by day and a bed at night. When dogs are kept in the house a portion of the divan belongs to them, and among the Mangoons there is a table in the center specially reserved for feeding the dogs.
I found the floors of clay, smooth and hard. Near the fire-place a little fire of charcoal is kept constantly burning in a shallow hole. Pipes are lighted at this fire, and small things can be warmed over it. Household articles were hung upon the rafters and cross beams, and there was generally a closet for table ware and other valuables. The cross-beams were sufficiently close to afford stowage room for considerable property. Fish-nets, sledges, and canoes were the most bulky articles I saw there.
Part of one wall was reserved for religious purposes, and covered with bear-skulls and bones, horse-hair, wooden idols, and pieces of colored cloth. Occasionally there were badly-painted pictures, purchased from the Chinese at enormous prices. Sometimes poles shaped like small idols are fixed before the houses.