Dwellings

Much in the same way that they made their baskets, the Cherokee built their houses by weaving limber twigs and cane through firm upright posts. Over these surfaces, the builders plastered a mixture of grass and weeds folded into smooth clay. Their roofs were similar woven constructions, covered with bark and thatch. To soften their oak beds beneath the buffalo and beaver skins, the women would place feathery boughs of hemlock and broomsage.

In cold weather, the families would sleep in a subterranean room called the "hothouse." Covered by earth, the hothouses were excavated in the ground and a fire burned in the center. Benches for sleeping surrounded the fire so that the winter chill would be kept far from the cozy nocturnal gatherings. Around these hothouse fires the "myth-keepers" told the sacred legends of their past.

Circular stones for baking bread lay next to fire basins scooped out of the center of the floor for preparing meals. Being a settled people, the Cherokee built their villages alongside rivers and did not live in teepees or wigwams like some of their more transient neighbors such as the Plains Indians. After the colonists began to build log houses, the Cherokee became expert in borrowing the designs of these structures and using native timber.