What two things might the houses described in The Way to Rainy Mountain symbolize?

The descriptions of the houses in this exciting piece of
literature are very fascinating, especially given the way that there is an obvious
similarity between the houses on the plain and the plain itself and the methods used to
describe them. Consider the following example, which is clearly richly symbolic in the
way the houses are presented:

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Houses are like sentinels in teh plain, old
keepers of the weather watch. There, in a very little while, wood takes on the
appearance of great age. All colours wear soon away in the wind and rain, and then the
wood is burned grey and the grain appears and the nails turn red with rust. The
windowpanes are black and opaque; you imagine there is nothing within, and indeed there
are many ghosts, bones given up to the land. They stand here and there against the sky,
and you approach them for a longer time than you expect. They belong in the distance; it
is their domain.

Note the way
that this description is similar to that given of the plains in the way that both
comment on distance and isolation, the past, and the importance of living in union with
nature. Thus we can say that the houses in this text are symbolic of the deep, intimate
connection that the Kiowa had with nature, and the way that they symbolise the isolated
kind of lives that the Kiowa followed.