Bousillage

Bousillage (bouzillage,[1] bousille, bouzille) is a mixture of clay and grass or other fibrous substances used as the infill (chinking) between the timbers of a half-timbered building.

[1] Bousillage in south Louisiana is a mixture of clay earth and retted Spanish moss, but in the Upper Mississippi River Valley and Canada contains straw, grass or hair,[1] used to fill in the panels in poteaux-sur-sol, poteaux-en-terre, and half-timbered framing (called colombage in French).

In France the framing was typically in-filled between the post with brick (briquette-entre-poteaux), stone and mud (pierrotage) or bousillage.

The colonist picked up on a technique that the Native Americans were using to build their wattle and daub structures, and that was heavy clay soil and retted Spanish moss as the binder.

Bousillage is made by layering a taché (hole in the ground) with mud and moss and adding water.