Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines Part 20

Let us, then, inquire whether the princ.i.p.al embankments of the Mound-Builders were adapted, as raised platforms of earth, for the sites of long houses constructed on the communistic principle, and in the general style of the houses of the American aborigines.

In the valley of the Scioto, in Ohio, and within an extent of twelve miles, were found the remains of seven villages of the Mound-Builders, four upon the east and three upon the west side of the river. They are among the best of their works, and furnish fair examples of the whole. One of the number, the High Bank Pueblo, is shown in ground-plan in the engraving, Fig. 46. It is the only one in which the inclosure is octagonal instead of square. The remains of each of the seven consist princ.i.p.ally of embankments like railway grades several feet high and correspondingly broad at the base, inclosing a square or slightly irregular area, the embankment on each of the four sides being about a thousand feet long, with an opening or gateway in the middle and at the four angles of the square. Attached to or quite near to five of the seven are large circular inclosures, each formed by a similar though lower embankment of earth and inclosing a s.p.a.ce somewhat larger than the squares. The respective heights of the embankments, forming four of the rectangles, are given at four, six, ten, and twelve feet; and of three of the circular embankments, at five and six feet, respectively.

The embankments inclosing the squares were probably the site of their houses; since, as the highest, and because they are straight, they were best adapted to the purpose. The situations of these pueblos at short distances from each other on the same stream accords with the usages of the Village Indians of New and Old Mexico and Central America in locating their villages. These pueblos were probably occupied by Mound-Builders of the same tribe, and were not unlikely under a common government, consisting of a council of chiefs.

It is probable, also, that they were constructed, one after the other, by colonists from an original village.

In the engraving, Fig. 46, the form and relations of the embankments are shown, with cross-sections indicating their elevation and present ground-dimensions. It was taken from the work of Squier and Davis. [Footnote: Smith Con., vol. i, p1. xvi.]

These authors remark that "the princ.i.p.al work consists of an octagon and circle, the former measuring nine hundred and fifty feet, the latter ten hundred and fifty feet in diameter.... The walls of the octagon are very bold, and, where they have been least subject to cultivation, are now between eleven and twelve feet in height by about fifty feet base. The wall of the circle is much less, nowhere measuring over four or five feet in alt.i.tude. In all these respects, as in the absence of a ditch and the presence of the two small circles, this work resembles the Hopeton Works." [Footnote: ib., p.

50.]

Of the latter, which is nine miles above on the Scioto, they remark that "the walls of the rectangular work are composed of a clayey loam twelve feet high by fifty feet base.... They resemble the heavy grading of a railway, and are broad enough on the top to admit of the pa.s.sage of a coach." [Footnote: ib., p. 51.]

It will be noticed that the octagonal work shown in the engraving consists of seven distinct embankments. Six of these are about four hundred and fifty feet long, and the remaining one, which once consisted of two equal sections, as shown by the mound to face an original opening in the center, now forms one continuous embankment facing one side of the inclosed area. If these embankments were reformed, with the materials washed down and now spread over a base of fifty feet, with sloping sides and a level summit, they would form new embankments thirty-seven feet wide at base, ten feet high, and with a summit platform twenty-two feet wide. If a surface coating of clay were used, the sides could be made steeper and the summit platform broader. On embankments thus reformed out of their original materials respectable as well as sufficient sites would be provided for long joint-tenement houses, comparted into chambers like stalls opening upon a central pa.s.sage way through the structure from end to end, as in the long-houses of the Iroquois. Such embankments were strikingly adapted to houses of the aboriginal American model, the characteristic feature of which was sufficient length to afford a number of apartments. This feature became more marked in the houses of the Village Indians, among whom houses three hundred, four hundred, and even five hundred feet in length have been found, as elsewhere stated.

These embankments answered as a subst.i.tute for the first story of the house constructed of adobe bricks, which was usually from ten to twelve feet high, and closed up solid on the ground, externally. The gateways entering the square were protected, it may be supposed, with palisades of round timber set in the ground, each row of stakes commencing at the opposite ends of the embankments and contracting after pa.s.sing each other to a narrow opening on the inside, which might be permanently closed. Indian tribes in a lower condition than the Mound-Builders were familiar with palisades. The inclosed square was thus completely protected by the long-houses standing upon these embankments and the gateways guarding the several entrances. The pueblo, externally, would present continuous ramparts of earth ten feet high, around an inclosed area, surmounted with timber-framed houses with walls sloping like the embankments, and coated with earth mixed with clay and gravel, rising ten or twelve feet above their summits; the two forming a sloping wall of earth twenty feet high. It seems extremely probable, for the reasons stated, that they raised these embankments as foundations, and planted their long-houses upon them, thus uniting the defensive principle with that of communism in living. Such houses would harmonize with the general plan of life of the American aborigines, and with the general type of their house architecture.

It is not necessary to know the exact form or internal plan of these houses in order to establish this hypothesis. It is sufficient to show that these embankments as restored were not only adapted, but admirably adapted, to joint-tenement houses of the aboriginal American type. The restoration, Fig. 47, was drawn by my friend James G. Cutler, esq., of Rochester, architect, in accordance with the foregoing suggestions. It shows not only the feasibility of occupying these embankments with long houses, but also that each pueblo was designed by the Mound-Builders to be a fortress, able to resist a.s.sault with the appliances of Indian warfare. From the defensive character of the great houses of the Village Indian in general, this feature might have been expected to appear in the houses of the Mound-Builders.

In this restoration the houses are nearly triangular and of simple construction. Indians much ruder than they are supposed to have been, as the Minnitarees and Mandans, walled their houses with slabs of wood standing on a slope, and roofed them at a lower angle, covering both the sloping external walls and the roof with a "concrete of tough clay and gravel," a foot or more thick. Long triangular houses of the width of the summit of these embankments, with their doorways opening upon the square, and with the interior comparted in the form of stalls upon each side of a central pa.s.sage way, would realize, with the inclosed court, some of the features and nearly all the advantages of the New Mexican pueblo houses. Occupying to the edge of the embankments, these of the Mound-Builders could not be successfully a.s.sailed from without either by Indian weapons or by fire; and within, their apartments would be as secure and capacious as those of the Village Indians in general at the period of their discovery. The inclosed court, which is of unusual size, is one of the remarkable features of the plan. It afforded a protected place for the villagers and a place of recreation for their children, as well as room for their drying-scaffolds, of which Mr. Cutler has introduced a number of the Minnetaree and Mandan model, and for gardens if they chose to use a part of the area for that purpose.

They would also require room for a large acc.u.mulation of fuel for winter use. The only a.s.sailable points are the gateways, of which the embankments show seven. These undoubtedly were protected by rows of round timber set in the ground, and pa.s.sing each other in such a manner as to leave a narrow opening, with a mound back of each, upon which archers could stand and shoot their arrows over the heads of those between them and the gateway in front. Such at least is the object which the presence of the mound in each case suggests.

In the engraving, Fig. 48, there is a ground plan of a section of one of the long-houses resting upon the restored embankment. It shows eight apartments upon opposite sides of the central pa.s.sage, each nine feet wide by six feet deep, and surrounded by raised bunks used both for seats and beds. The pa.s.sage is eight feet wide and runs through the house from end to end, with fire-pits in the center for each four apartments. In interior plan it is an exact transcript of the long-house of the Iroquois, and therefore adapted to the joint habitation of a large number of related families, and to the practice of communism.

Another section shows the embankment below the line A-B, which, as stated, is ten feet high upon a base thirty-seven feet wide, and with a summit platform twenty-two feet wide, which forms the floor of the house. Above this is a cross-section of the structure. Round posts six inches in diameter are set in the ground upon the lines of the central pa.s.sage, defining also the several stalls. These posts, which rise eight feet above the level of the floor and are forked at the top, support string-pieces which run the length of the house.

Against these, planks of split timber are placed so as to form a sloping external wall, and these are covered with clay and gravel a foot or more thick. A simpler method would be the use of poles set close together and sunk in the ground, afterwards coated in the same manner. Cross-pieces of round timber rest upon the stringers over each pair of posts. The roof over the central pa.s.sage is formed independently of poles bracing against each other at the center from opposite sides. This is also covered with concrete or mud mortar.

Openings through the roof are left over the fire-pits for the exit of the smoke. The principle of construction adopted is that employed in the dirt lodges of the Minnitarees and Mandans of the Upper Missouri. As thus restored, this pueblo of the Mound-Builders is not superior in the mechanism of the houses to those of the tribes named.

[Footnote: There are some reasons for supposing that the Minnitarees are descendants of the Mound Builders.]

An elevation of a portion of one of the houses, on the court side, is also furnished, showing the embankment with a ladder resting upon it used as steps, and which could be taken up at night; also one of the doors by which the house was entered.

It is not necessary, as before suggested, that the actual form and structure of the houses of the Mound-Builders should be shown to establish the hypothesis that these embankments were the veritable sites of their houses. If it is made evident that the summit platforms of these embankments, when reformed from their own materials, would afford practicable sites for houses, which when constructed would have been comfortable dwellings adapted to the climate and to Indian life in the Middle Status of barbarism, this is all that can be required. The restoration of this pueblo establishes the affirmative of this proposition, with the superadded confirmation of that defensive character which marks all the house architecture of the Village Indians in New and Old Mexico and Central America.

With their undoubted advancement beyond the Iroquois and Minnitarees, the Mound-Builders may have constructed better houses upon these platform elevations than the plans indicate. No remains of adobes have been found in connection with these embankments, and nothing to indicate that walls of such brick had ever been raised upon them.

The disintegrated ma.s.s would have shown itself in the form of the embankment after the lapse of many centuries. On the contrary, they were found in the precise form they would have a.s.sumed, under atmospheric influences, after structures of the kind described had perished, and the embankments had been abandoned for centuries.

These embankments, therefore, require triangular houses of the kind described, and long-houses, as well, covering their entire length.

But the interior plan might have been different, for example, the pa.s.sage way might have been along the exterior wall, and the stalls or apartments on the court side, and but half as many in number, and, instead of one continuous house in the interior, four hundred and fifty feet in length, it might have been divided into several, separated from each other by cross part.i.tions. The plan of life, however, which we are justified in ascribing to them, from known usages of Indian tribes in a similar condition of advancement, would lead us to expect large households formed on the basis of kin, with the practice of communism in living in each household, whether large or small. There is a direct connection in principle between the platform elevations inclosing a large square on which the High Bank Pueblo was constructed, and the pyramidal platforms in Yucatan, smaller in diameter but higher in elevation, upon which were erected the most artistic houses constructed by the American aborigines. In the latter cases the central area rises to the common level of the embankments upon which the houses were constructed. The former has the security gained by a house-site above the level of the surrounding ground; and it represents about all the advance made by the Village Indians in the art of war above the tribes in a lower condition of barbarism. They placed their houses and homes in a position una.s.sailable by the methods of Indian warfare.

There is some diversity, as would be expected, in the size of the squares inclosed by these embankments. They range from four hundred and fifty to seventeen hundred feet, the majority measuring between eight hundred and fifty and a thousand feet. Gateways are usually found at the four angles and at the center of each side. A comparison of the dimensions of twenty of these squares, figured in the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," gives for the average nine hundred and thirty-seven feet. The aggregate length of the embankments shown in Fig. 46 is three thousand six hundred feet, which, at an average of ten feet for each apartment, would give three hundred and sixty upon each side of the pa.s.sage way, or seven hundred and twenty in all. From this number should be deducted such as were used for storage, for doorways, and for public uses.

Allowing two apartments for each family of five persons, the High Bank Pueblo would have accommodated from fifteen hundred to two thousand persons, living in the fashion of Indians, which is about the number of an average pueblo of the Village Indians. This result may be strengthened by comparing houses of existing Indian tribes.

The Seneca-Iroquois village of Tiotohatton, two centuries ago, was estimated at a hundred and twenty houses. Taking the number at one hundred, with an average length of fifty feet, and it would give a lineal length of house-room of five thousand feet. It was the largest of the Seneca, and the largest of the Iroquois villages, and contained about two thousand inhabitants. A similar result is obtained by another comparison. The aggregate length of the apartments in the pueblo of Chettro Kettle, in New Mexico, now in ruins, including those in the several stories, is four thousand seven hundred feet. It contained probably about the same number of inhabitants.

The foregoing explanation of the uses of these embankments rests upon the defensive principle in the house architecture of the Village Indians, and upon a state of the family requiring joint tenement houses communistic in character. To both of these requirements this conjectural restoration of one of the pueblos of the Mound-Builders responds in a remarkable manner. In the diversified forms of the houses of the Village Indians, in all parts of America, the defensive principle is a constant feature. Among the Mound-Builders a rampart of earth ten feet high around a village would afford no protection, but surmounted with long-houses, the walls of which rose continuous with the embankments, the strength of these walls, though of timber coated with earth, would render a rampart thus surmounted and doubled in height a formidable barrier against Indian a.s.sault. The second principle, that of communism in living in joint-tenement houses, which is impressed not less clearly upon the houses of the Village Indians in general than upon the supposed houses of the Mound-Builders, harmonized completely with the first. From the two together sprang the house architecture of the American aborigines, with its diversities of form, and they seem sufficient for its interpretation. The Mound-Builders in their new area east of the Mississippi finding it impossible to construct joint tenement houses of adobe bricks to which they had been accustomed subst.i.tuted solid embankments of earth in the place of the first story closed up on the ground and erected triangular houses upon them covered with earth. When circ.u.mstances compelled a change of plan, the second is not a violent departure from the first.

There is a natural connection between them. Finally, it is deemed quite sufficient to sustain the interpretation given that these embankments were eminently adapted to the uses indicated, and that the pueblo as restored, and with its inclosed court, would have afforded to its inhabitants pleasant, protected and attractive homes.

With respect to the large circular inclosures, adjacent to and communicating with the squares, it is not necessary that we should know their object. The one attached to the High Bank Pueblo contains twenty acres of land, and doubtless subserved some useful purpose in their plan of life. The first suggestion which presents itself is, that as a subst.i.tute for a fence it surrounded the garden of the village in which they cultivated their maize, beans, squashes, and tobacco. At the Minnetaree village a similar inclosure may now be seen by the side of the village surrounding their cultivated land, consisting partly of hedge and partly of stakes, the open prairie stretching out beyond. We cannot know all the necessities that attended their mode of life; although houses, gardens, food, and raiment were among those which must have existed.

There is another cla.s.s of circular embankments, about two hundred and fifty feet in diameter, connected with each other in some cases by long and low parallel embankments, as may be seen in Fig 46.

Undoubtedly they were for some useful purpose, which may or may not be divined correctly, but a knowledge of which is not necessary to our hypothesis respecting the princ.i.p.al embankments. It may be suggested as probable that the Mound-Builders were organized in gentes, phratries, and tribes. If this were the case, the phratries would need separate places for holding their councils and for performing their religious observances. These ring embankments suggest the circular estufas found in connection with the New Mexican pueblos, two, four, and sometimes five at one pueblo. The circles were adapted to open-air councils, after the fashion of the American Indian tribes. As there are two of these connected with each other, and two not connected, it is not improbable that the Mound-Builders at this village were organized in two and perhaps four phratries, and that they performed their religious ceremonies and public business in these open estufas.

[Footnote: The solid rectangular platforms found at Marietta, Ohio, and at several places in the Gulf region, are a.n.a.logous to those in Yucatan. They are an advance upon the ring inclosures, and were probably designed for religious uses. That the Mound Builders were at one time accustomed to adobe brick is proven by their presence at Seltzertown, in the State of Mississippi, forming a part of the wall of a mound. (See Foster's Pre-Historic Races of the U.S., p. 112.)]

Practice of Cremation.--Among other works are the conical mounds, which are numerous, found in or near circular embankments. They vary in height from five to ten and twenty feet; with one, the Grave Creek Mound, seventy feet high. They are cla.s.sified by Squier and Davis, who surveyed and examined them, into "Mounds of Sacrifice,"

"Mounds of Sepulture," and "Mounds of Observation." The first kind only in which the so-called altars are found will be noticed.

At the center of each of the mounds of this cla.s.s, and on the ground level there was found a bed of clay artificially formed into a shallow basin and then hardened by fire These basins have been termed "altars" by Squier and Davis in their work on the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley." Mr. Squier remarks in a resume of this work published separately that "some are round others elliptical and others square or parallelograms.... The usual dimensions are from five to eight feet." [Footnote: Trans. Am Eth Soc]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG 49--Mound Artificial Clay Basin]

At Mound City on the Scioto River there is a group of twenty six mounds in one inclosure an engraving of one of which taken from Mr. Squier's paper is shown in Fig 49. It is seven feet high by fifty five feet base and contained the artificial clay basin in question. 'F' is the basin which is round, and measures from c to d nine feet, and from a to e five feet. The height from b to e is twenty inches, and the dip of the curve a to e is nine inches.

"The body of the altar," Mr. Squier remarks, "is burned throughout, though in a greater degree within the basin where it was so hard as to resist the blow of a heavy hatchet, the instrument rebounding as if struck upon a rock. The basin, or hollow of the altar, was filled up even full with dry ashes, intermingled with which were some fragments of pottery.... One of the vases, taken in fragments from the mound, has been very nearly restored. The sketch B presents its outlines and the character of its ornaments. Its height is six, and its greatest diameter eight inches.... Above the deposit of ashes, and covering the entire basin, was a layer of silvery or opaque mica in sheets overlapping each other, and immediately over the center of the basin was heaped a quant.i.ty of human bones, probably the amount of a single skeleton, in fragments. The position of these is indicated by O in the section. The layer of mica and calcined bones, it should be remarked to prevent misapprehension, was peculiar to this individual mound, and not found in any other of the cla.s.s."

[Footnote: Observations, etc, Trans Am Eth Soc ii p 161] Calcined bones, however, were found in three out of some twenty mounds of this cla.s.s examined. [Footnote: Ane Monte pp. 157, 159]

The question now recurs, what was the use of the basin of clay, and what the object of the mound itself? The terms "altars" and "mounds of sacrifice," employed in describing them, imply that human sacrifices were offered on these "altars," "upon which glowed the sacrificial fires." [Footnote: Ib, p. 15]

There is no propriety, I respectfully submit, in the use of either of these terms, or in the conclusions they would force us to adopt Human sacrifices were unknown in the Lower Status of barbarism; but they were introduced in the Middle Status, when the first organized priesthood, distinguished by their apparel, appears. In parts of Mexico, and, it is claimed, in parts of Central America, these atrocious rites were performed, but they were unknown in New Mexico, and, without better evidence than these miscalled altars afford, they cannot be fastened upon the Mound-Builders. Moreover, these clay beds were not adapted to the barbarous work. Wherever human sacrifices are known to have occurred among the American aborigines, the place was an elevated mound platform, in the nature of a temple, as the Teocalli of Mexico, and the raised altar or sacrificial stone stood before the idol in whose worship the rites were performed.

There is neither a temple nor an idol, but a hollow bed of clay covered by a mound raised in honor over the ashes of a deceased chief, for a.s.suredly such a mound would not have been raised over the ashes of a victim. Indians never exchanged prisoners of war. Adoption or burning at the stake was the alternative of capture; but no mound was ever raised over the burned remains. Human sacrifices seem to have originated in an attempt to utilize the predetermined death of prisoners of war in the service of the G.o.ds, until slavery finally offered a profitable subst.i.tute, in the Upper Status of barbarism.

Another use suggests itself for this artificial basin more in accordance with Indian usages and customs, namely, that cremation of the body of a deceased chief was performed upon it, after which the mound in question was raised over his ashes in accordance with Indian custom.

Cremation was practiced by the Village Indians only among the American aborigines. It was not general even among them, burial in the ground being the common usage; but it was more or less general in the case of chiefs. The mode of cremation varied in different areas, but the full particulars are not given in any instance. In Nicaragua the body of a deceased chief of the highest grade was wrapped in clothes and suspended by ropes before a fire until the body was baked to dryness; then, after keeping it a year, it was taken to the market-place, where they burned it, believing that the smoke went "to the place where the dead man's soul was." [Footnote: Herrera's Hist. America, ii, 133.] From this or some similar conceit the practice of cremation probably originated.

THE PROBABLE NUMBERS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

There are no reasons for supposing, from the number of their villages, that the Mound-Builders were a numerous people. My friend, Prof. Charles Whittlesey, in a discussion of the rate of increase of the human race, estimates them at 500,000. [Footnote: Trans.

Am. a.s.s. for the Adv. of Science, 1873, p. 320.]

With thanks for the moderateness of the estimate, one-third of that number would have been more satisfactory. Dense populations, an expression sometimes applied to the Mound-Builders, have never existed without either flocks and herds, or field agriculture with the use of the plow. In some favored areas, where the facilities for irrigation were unusual, a considerable population has been developed upon horticulture; but no traces of irrigating ca.n.a.ls have been found in connection with the works of the Mound-Builders.

Furthermore, it was unnecessary in their areas. Transplanted from a comparatively mild to a cold climate, they must have found the struggle for existence intensified. Like the Cibolans in 1540, it was doubtless at all times equally true of them, that "they had barely provisions enough for themselves." And yet there is no cereal equal to maize in the rich reward it returns even for poor cultivation. It grows in the hill, can be eaten green as well as ripe, and is hardy and prolific. At the same time, while it can be made the basis of human subsistence, it is not sufficient of itself for the maintenance of vigorous, healthful life. Vegetables and game were requisite to complete the supply of food. The difficulties in the way of production set a limit to their numbers. These also explain the small number of their settlements in the large areas over which they spread. Although they found native copper on the south sh.o.r.e of Lake Superior, and beat it into chisels and a species of pointed spade, the number of copper tools found is small, much too small to lead to the supposition that it sensibly influenced their cultivation. A pick pointed with a stone chisel, a spade of wood, and a triangular piece of flint set in a wooden handle and used as a knife, were as perfect implements as they were able to command. Horticulture practiced thus rudely was necessarily of limited productiveness.

The idea has been advanced that "the condition of society among the Mound-Builders was not that of freemen, or, in other words, that the state possessed absolute power over the lives and fortunes of its subjects." [Footnote: Foster's Pre-historic Races, etc., p. 386.]

It is a sufficient answer to this remarkable pa.s.sage that a people unable to dig a well or build a dry stone wall must have been unable to establish political society, which was necessary to the existence of a state.

From the absence of all traditionary knowledge of the Mound-Builders among the tribes found east of the Mississippi, an inference arises that the period of their occupation was ancient. Their withdrawal was probably gradual, and completed before the advent of the ancestors of the present tribes, or simultaneous with their arrival.

It seems more likely that their retirement from the country was voluntary than that they were expelled by an influx of wild tribes.

If their expulsion had been the result of a protracted warfare, all remembrance of so remarkable an event would scarcely have been lost among the tribes by whom they were displaced. A warm climate was necessary for the successful maintenance of the highest form of Village Indian life. In the struggle for existence in this cold climate Indian arts and ingenuity must have been taxed quite as heavily to provide clothing as food. It is therefore not improbable that the attempt to transplant the New Mexican type of village life into the valley of the Ohio proved a failure, and that after great efforts, continued through centuries of time, it was finally abandoned by their withdrawal, first into the gulf region through which they entered, and, lastly, from the country altogether.

The Tlascalans practiced cremation, but it was generally limited to the chiefs. [Footnote: Herrera's Hist. America, ii, 302.] It was the same among the Aztecs. "Others were burnt and the ashes buried in the temples, but they were all interred with whatever things of value they possessed." [Footnote: ib., iii, 220.] The Mayas of Yucatan came nearer the Romans in the practice, for they preserved the ashes in earthen vessels. "The dead were much lamented," remarks Herrera, "in silence by day and with dismal shrieks by night....

filling their mouths with ground wheat [maize] that they might not want food in the other world.... The bodies of their lords were burnt and their ashes put into large vessels, over which temples were built. Some made wooden statues of their parents, and leaving an hollow in the necks of them, put in their ashes and kept them among their idols with great veneration." [Footnote: ib., iv, 175.]

In New Mexico cremation is occasionally practiced at the present time.

That the Mound-Builders should have had this custom, in view of its prevalence among the Village Indians, would afford no cause of surprise. I think we may, not without reason, recognize in this artificial basin of clay a cremation bed, upon which the body was placed in a sitting posture, covered with fuel, and then burned--in some cases partially, and in others until every vestige of the body had been burned to ashes--after which, or even before the burning, a mound was raised over them as a mark of honor and respect. These mounds have yielded a large number of copper and stone implements, pipes, fragments of water jars, and other articles usually entombed with the remains of the dead. It seems to have been their method of cremation; and it must be admitted to be quite as respectable as any known form of this strange practice of a large portion of the human race.

[Relocated Footnote: "The snow and cold are wont to be great,"

Coronado remarks in his relation, "for so say the inhabitants of the country; and it is very likely so to be, both in respect of the manner of the country and of the fashion of their houses, and their furs and other things, which the people have to defend them from cold....