View source for Jacal

{{Short description|Adobe-style housing structure}}
[[File:Luna Jacal TX NPS.jpg|thumb|300px|Luna Jacal in [[Big Bend National Park]].]]
[[File:San Xavier del Bac, c1913.jpg|300px|thumb|Southern Arizona's [[San Xavier del Bac]] in 1913. [[Tohono O'odham]] jacals can be seen in front of the mission, many of which are still used today.]]
The '''jacal''' ({{IPAc-en|h|ə|ˈ|k|ɑː|l}}; [[Mexican Spanish]] from [[Nahuatl]] ''xacalli'' contraction of ''xamitl calli''; literally "hut") is an [[adobe]]-style housing structure historically found throughout parts of the [[Southwestern United States]] and [[Mexico]].<ref name ="TSHA">{{cite web | url = https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/cbtut | title = Texas-Mexican Vernacular Architecture | publisher = [[The Handbook of Texas]] online | access-date = 17 Jun 2017}}</ref> This type of structure was employed by some [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|aboriginal people of the Americas]] prior to European colonization and was later employed by both Hispanic and non-Hispanic settlers in [[Texas]] and elsewhere.<ref name ="DeWitt">{{cite web | url = http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/Economy.htm | title = DeWitt Colony Life | publisher = Sons of DeWitt Colony Texas | access-date = 17 Jun 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101205113805/http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/Economy.htm | archive-date = 5 December 2010 | url-status = dead }}</ref>

Typically, a jacal consisted of slim close-set poles tied together and filled out with mud, clay and grasses. More sophisticated structures, such as those constructed by the [[Ancestral Puebloans|Ancestral Pueblo people]], incorporated adobe bricks—sun-baked mud and sandstone.

Jacal construction is similar to [[wattle and daub]]. However, the "wattle" portion of jacal structures consists mainly of vertical poles lashed together with cordage and sometimes supported by a pole framework, as in the [[pit-house]]s of the [[Pecos Classification|Basketmaker III]] period of the Ancestral Puebloan (a.k.a. Anasazi) people of the American Southwest. This is overlain with a layer of mud/adobe (the "daub"), sometimes applied over a middle layer of dry grasses or brush which functions as insulation.

==See also==
* [[Luna Jacal]] in [[Big Bend National Park]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wiktionarypar|jacal}}
*Sketch of a [http://texashistory.unt.edu/widgets/pager.php?object_id=meta-pth-5828&recno=287&path=meta-pth-5828.tkl Jacal] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311044350/http://texashistory.unt.edu/widgets/pager.php?object_id=meta-pth-5828&recno=287&path=meta-pth-5828.tkl |date=2007-03-11 }} from [https://web.archive.org/web/20080723155832/http://texashistory.unt.edu/permalink/meta-pth-5828 ''A pictorial history of Texas, from the earliest visits of European adventurers, to A.D. 1879''], hosted by the [http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20021008225402/http://www.co.hidalgo.tx.us/ Portal to Texas History].

{{Prehistoric technology}}
{{Huts}}
{{Native american styles}}
{{Architecture in the United States}}
[[Category:House types]]
[[Category:Dwellings of the Pueblo peoples]]
[[Category:Adobe buildings and structures]]
[[Category:Huts]]