Smoke within doors may be a necessary evil, as it
prevents the musquitoes from coming in, which are pretty numerous here. In
some respects their habitations are neat; for, besides the ornaments at
top, I saw some with carved door-posts. Upon the whole, their houses are
better calculated for a cold than a hot climate; and as there are no
partitions in them, they can have little privacy.
They have no great variety of household utensils; the earthen jars before
mentioned being the only article worth notice. Each family has at least one
of them, in which they bake their roots, and perhaps their fish, &c. The
fire, by which they cook their victuals, is on the outside of each house,
in the open air. There are three or five pointed stones fixed in the
ground, their pointed ends being about six inches above the surface. Those
of three stones are only for one jar, those of five stones for two. The
jars do not stand on their bottoms, but lie inclined on their sides. The
use of these stones is obviously to keep the jars from resting on the fire,
in order that it may burn the better.
They subsist chiefly on roots and fish, and the bark of a tree, which I am
told grows also in the West Indies.
