Illustration: Seneca-Iroquois long house.]

[Illustration: Ground-plan of long house.]

[Sidenote: The long houses of the Iroquois.]

The principle was first studied and explained by Mr. Morgan in the case
of the famous "long houses" of the Iroquois. "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 was
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 long 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[73] at intervals of six or eight feet, leaving each
chamber entirely open like a stall upon the passageway which passed
through the centre 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 centre 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
accumulations of provisions. Each house, as a rule, was occupied by
related families, the mothers and their children belonging to the same
gens, while their husbands and the fathers of these children belonged to
other gentes; consequently the gens or clan of the mother largely
predominated in the household. Whatever was taken in the hunt or raised
by cultivation by any member of the household ... was for the common
benefit. Provisions were made a common stock within the household."[74]

[Footnote 73: This verb of Mr. Morgan's at first struck me as
odd, but though rarely used, it is supported by good authority;
see _Century Dictionary_, s. v.]

[Footnote 74: The Iroquois ceased to build such houses before
the beginning of the present cent