Kogi - Settlements

Kogi villages, consisting of five to more than fifty circular, single-family houses, are not permanently inhabited but are social and ritual centers where people gather only at certain times of the year or for short overnight stays while on the way to their fields. People spend most of their time in scattered homesteads spread over the mountain flanks at different altitudes. A family might own up to five or more houses, each one located in a small field clinging to a slope or nestling in a narrow bottomland area. All houses have one door, are windowless, and have a dirt floor; the diameter of an average house is 3 meters. The walls are traditionally made of plaited, flattened canes or, more recently, of wattle and daub. In the cold highlands the walls of some houses are built up of rough stones. The conical roofs of all houses are thatched with mountain grass.