Author's Sketch and interpretation of the Indian shelter.
At night I hung up my blanket like a hammock, that I
might lay out of the reach of the fleas,
troublefome and conftant guefts in an Indian hut ; but
I found my contrivance too cool for
a
place open on all fides.
About break of day it began to rain, and the Indians
made us a covering of bark
got after this manner: They cut the tree round through
the bark near the root, and
make the like incifion above 7 feet above it, there
horizontal ones are joined by a
perpendicular cut, on each fide of which they after
loofen the bark from the wood, and
hewing a pole at the fmall end, gradually tapering like
a wedge about 2 feet, they force
it in till they have compleated the feparation all
round, and the bark parts whole from the tree,
one of which, a foot diameter, yields a piece 7 feet
long and above 3 wide : And having now prepared four forked fticks, they are
fet into the ground the longer in front ; on these they lay the crofs-poles
and on them the bark. This makes a good tight fhelter
in warm weather. The rain was
quickly over, but as it continued cloudy, we did not
care to leave our fhed. Here our Indians
fhot a young deer, that afforded us a good feaft.
John
Bartram 1743. Travells from Pennsylvania to Canada.
