Page:Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.djvu/152

 It lies to the westward of Canagora (Canandaigua) about thirty miles, contains about 120 houses, being the largest of all the houses we saw, the ordinary being fifty to sixty feet long, with twelve and thirteen fires in one house. They have a good store of corn growing to the northward of the town."

The "long-house" of the Iroquois, from which they called themselves, as one confederated people, Ho-de'-no-sau-nee (People of the Long-House), was from fifty to eighty and sometimes one hundred feet long. It consisted of a strong frame of upright poles set in the ground, which were strengthened with horizontal poles attached with withes, and surmounted with a triangular, and in some cases with a round roof It was covered over, both sides and roof, with large strips of elm bark tied to the frame with strings or splints. An external frame of poles for the sides and of rafters for the roof were then adjusted to hold the bark shingles between them, the two frames being tied together.

The interior of the house was comparted at intevalsintervals [sic] of six or eight feet, leaving each chamber entirely open like a stall upon the passage way which passed through the center of the house from end to end. At each end was a doorway covered with suspended skins. Between each four apartments, two on a side, was a fire-pit in the center of the hall, used in common by their occupants. Thus a house with five fires would contain twenty apartments and accommodate twenty families, unless some apartments were reserved for storage. They were warm, roomy, and tidily kept habitations. Raised bunks were constructed around the walls of each apartment for beds. From the roof-poles were suspended their strings of corn in the ear, braided by the husks, also strings of dried squashes and pumpkins. Spaces were contrived here and there to store away their