While the jacales are not consistently oriented, they reveal a primary preference for facing away from the prevailing wind and toward the nearest sea, with a secondary preference for southern and eastern exposures—the former preference being easily explained, since a gale from the front quickly strips walls and roof and scatters the materials afar. No definite order is observed in the placement of the several jacales in the larger rancherias; apparently the first is located at the choice of the leading elderwoman, and the others are clustered about it at the common convenience. Usually the several jacales are entirely separate; but at Punta Tormenta, Punta Narragansett, and still more notably at Rada Ballena, individual huts were found either extended to double length or joined obliquely in such wise as to show two fronts (as illustrated in plate VI). The conventional frameworks appear to be common tribal property, at least to the extent that an abandoned skeleton may be preempted by any comer; while the addition of walls and roof appears to afford a prescriptive proprietary right to the elderwoman and family by whom the work is done—though the right seems to hold only during occupancy, or until the temporary covering is dislodged. [Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XXXII PAINTED OLLA, WITH OLLA RING] The jacales are without semblance of furnishing, beyond an occasional ahst and a few loose pebbles used as hupfs; though the nooks behind the bows and tie-sticks sometimes serve as places of concealment for paint-cups, awls, hair bobbins, and other domestic trifles. There is no floor but earth, and this remains in natural condition, except for trampling and wearing into wallows, recalling those of fowls and swine, which afford a rough measure of the periods of occupancy; there is no fireplace—indeed, fires are rarely made in the jacales, nor for that matter frequently anywhere; and there are no fixed places for bedding, water ollas, or other portable possessions, none of which are left behind when the householders are abroad. * * * * * Little is known of the actual process of jacal building, especially in Seriland proper; but the observations of Señor Encinas and his vaqueros on the frontier corroborate Mashém’s statements that the houses are built by (and belong to) the matrons; that several women customarily cooperate in the collection of the okatilla and erection of the framework; that the only tools used in the processes are hupfs and miscellaneous sticks; and that the placing and fitting of the beams and tie sticks are accompanied by a chant, usually led by the eldest matron of the group. The same informants support the ready inference from the structure that the shrubbery and other material forming walls and roofs are gathered and placed from time to time by the women occupying the jacales.