Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines

This work examines domestic architecture among indigenous American peoples, arguing that dwelling forms reveal social organization, kinship patterns, and stages of cultural development. It emphasizes communal and joint-tenement houses—often organized around maternal kin or gens—contrasting simpler longhouse arrangements with more complex adobe and stone tenements that accompany agricultural advancement. The text outlines kinship units (gens, phratry, tribe), proposes a periodization marked by technologies such as pottery and adobe, surveys regional house types from mound-builders to southern adobe communities, and offers methodological suggestions for archaeological study of ruins and household life.