Page 254 - The Lost Ways

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In the 19 and early 20 centuries, construction changed. In some cases, the earthen roof
was replaced with shakes. In most cases, roundhouse construction evolved to be entirely
above ground, which is how most roundhouses are built today. There aren’t many
accounts of the exact architecture of the old semi-subterranean roundhouses; one of the

most useful is Miwok Material Culture: Indian Life of the Yosemite Region by S. A. Barrett
and E. W. Gifford. This chapter is based on information in this book and on my own
experience in rebuilding and maintaining a modern-day semi-subterranean roundhouse
that was built in the traditional way.

Another excellent source of information is Ethnographic Notes on California Indian Tribes
by C. Hart Merriam. Most of the roundhouses Merriam describes are aboveground styles
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that emerged beginning in the late 19 century after California became a state and people
began using the modern building materials and tools of the Americans now swarming into
the new state.

None of the original semi-subterranean roundhouses have survived. Wood decays quickly
underground, so a roundhouse lasts at most a few decades. Perhaps for this reason, some
villages had a tradition of burning the roundhouse after the headman died and building a
new one to replace it. However, there are contemporary recreations.

One is at the Chaw’se Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park near Jackson, California,
another is in the Indian village of the Ahwahnee in Yosemite National Park, and a third is
in the replica Coast Miwok village Kule Loklo (“Bear Valley“) in California’s Point Reyes
National Seashore. All three are in state or federal parks but are used in traditional ways
by California native people.

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Kule Loklo was created in the 1970s when a group of educators and archeologists in
Marin County formed the Miwok Archeological Preserve of Marin (MAPOM) and
partnered with the National Park Service to build a replica Coast Miwok Indian village.

The original 1970s roundhouse no longer stands, but you can visit the replacement that
was constructed in 1992.

60 Kule Loklo roundhouse entrance - photo by Erik Gordon Bainbridge

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