[Illustration: TRANSVERSE SECTION (SOMEWHAT GENERALISED) SHOWING CONSTRUCTION OF PALENQUE BUILDINGS, YUCATAN _f_, trefoil opening through medial wall; _g_, _h_, two principal varieties of roof comb W. H. Holmes ] [Illustration: SOME DETAILS OF PUEBLO HOUSE ARCHITECTURE A TRIANGULAR SIPAPU OR SACRED KIVA ORIFICE PUEBLO ROOF CONSTRUCTION SOME MOKI ROOF DRAINS ] On the North-west coast the native houses are usually built of cedar slabs. These slabs are split out of the wide trees[188] and the walls are obtained by securing them in an upright position to a frame about ten feet high. On this rests the roof of split shakes, bark, or boards, laid on rafters which are supported in the middle by two long, heavy beams, running the entire length of the house, and themselves borne up by four huge posts, often carved with totemic emblems. The general outward appearance of these houses is much like an ordinary low one-story house or barn of our own, except that in the middle of the roof there is a large square hole for a smoke outlet, the fire being made on a patch of sand or earth that forms a square about nine by ten feet in the middle of the room, the size depending on the dimensions of the house. They are usually about thirty or forty feet square,[189] the interior forming one large room, sometimes having a platform on one or two sides or all the way round about six feet wide and two feet high. This is divided by thin partitions into small compartments, which are covered about six feet above the floor with a ceiling of thin boards. A curtain in front makes a room of it. These houses vary somewhat in the different localities, but the type is about the same from the Puget Sound region to Yakutat Bay. Some of the Sound Amerinds give but one pitch to the roof. Many of the natives now build a house of sawed materials and roof it with shingles so that their modern villages, like the one at Sitka, present outwardly few Amerind signs, as they usually have chimneys, too, instead of smoke holes. Where they have the latter, boards are stuck up above the ridge to form a windbreak, or a more perfect arrangement for preventing back draught is applied in the shape of a large solid shutter so pivoted in the middle line that it can be tilted from one side of the ridge to the other. Among some tribes there are several smoke holes with adjustable boards that can be worked from below with a pole. The entire front gable of a chief’s house or an assembly house is often ornamented with a huge totemic design, painted on smooth boards that fill the whole space. In front of the house stood the tall pole bearing the totems of the inmates carved, one above another, with a full relief totem adorning the top. Small houses were built to hold the boxes containing the ashes of the dead, and the roof was sometimes surmounted with a totem carved in wood, or the totem was erected on a small pole nearby, or placed under the roof.