Quiggly hole

A quiggly hole appears as a circular depression in the ground, the remnants of a former log-roofed pithouse (locally named a barabara or an ulax).

Quiggly towns are typically located where solar exposure, water supply, and access to fish, game and gatherable foodstuffs are favorable.

Similar structures are used in the sweat lodges that are common in First Nations communities today, though those are made out of sticks instead of logs, with branches and blankets instead of earth as a covering.

Although found to a limited degree on the southern British Columbia Coast and Puget Sound where log-frame longhouses and lean-to structures are more common, they are the main trait of native pre-Contact archaeology throughout the Interior cultures, and may have variously been either seasonal or permanent settlements.

Called a si7xten (SHIH-stn) in the St̓át̓imcets language, its design is based on notes drawn by anthropologist James Teit, who had settled and married in with the Nlakaʼpamux people of Spences Bridge.

Teit's drawings, upon which Lillooet's rebuilt si7xten was built, also owed to his knowledge of underground houses in the Thompson and Bonaparte valleys; in his day, people still resided in them.

Its occupants are believed by archaeologists to have been ancestors of the Athapaskan people resident in the area now, who had originally used their familiar style of housing when they first migrated into the region.