Captain John Smith Describes the Powhaton Indian Houses
The houses of the Powhatan Indians of Virginia proper, as described by Captain John Smith, were precisely like those of Pomeiock and Secotan. A part of the interior of the house in which Smith was received by Powhatan as a prisoner is engraved upon his map of Virginia, of which the following is a
With caption:
POWHATAN
Held this state & fashion when Capt. Smith
was delivered to him prisoner
1607]
POWHATAN
Held this state & fashion when Capt. Smith
was delivered to him prisoner
1607]
"Their houses are built," Smith remarks, "like our arbors, of small young sprigs, bowed and tied, and so close covered with mats, or the bark of trees, very handsomely, that notwithstanding either wind, rain, or weather, they are as warm as stoves, but very smoky; yet, at the top of the house there is a hole made for the smoke to go into right over the fire. Against the fire they lie on little hurdles of reeds covered with a mat, borne from the ground a foot or more by a hurdle of wood. On these, round about the house, they lie, heads and points, one by the other against the fire, some covered with mats, some with skins, and some stark naked lie on the ground, from six to twenty in a house." [Footnote: History of Virginia, i, 130.]
The engraving is probably an improvement upon the original house in the symmetry of the structure, but it is doubtless a truthful representation of its mechanism. It seems likely that a double set of upright poles were used, one upon the outside and one on the inside, between which the mattings of canes or willows were secured, as the houses at Pomeiock and Secotan are ribbed externally at internals of about eight feet, showing four, five, and six sections. Each house, on this hypothesis, would be from twenty-four to forty-eight feet long. A reference (supra, p. 67) has been made to the size of the houses of the Virginia Indians, from which their communistic character may be inferred.
