for the use of his family. In this work she is assisted by
women of her clan. The women are also required in case of need to look
after their parents.

There are many interesting customs in the domestic life of the
Iroquois. I can notice a few only. The system of living, at the time
Morgan visited the tribes, consisted of a plan at once novel and
distinctive. Each _gens_ or clan lived in a long tenement house, large
enough to accommodate the separate families. These houses were
erected on frames of poles, covered with bark, and were from fifty to
a hundred feet in length. A passage way led down the centre, and rooms
were portioned off on either side: the doors were at each end of the
passage. An apartment was allotted to each family. There were several
fireplaces, usually one for every four families, which were placed in
the central passage: there were no chimneys. The Iroquois lived in
these long houses, _Ho-de-no-sau-nee_, up to A.D. 1700, and in
occasional instances for a hundred years later. They were not peculiar
to the Iroquois, but were used by many tribes. Unfortunately this wise
plan of living has now almost entirely passed away.

I wish that I had space to give a fuller account of these
families.[47] Each household practised communism in living, and made a
common stock of the provisions acquired by fishing and hunting, and by
the cultivation of maize and plants. The curse of individual
accumulation would seem not to have existed. Ownership of land and all
property was held in common. Each household was directed by the matron
who supervised its domestic economy. After the daily meal was cooked
at the several fires, the matron was summoned, and it was her duty to
apportion the food from the kettle to the different families according
to their respective needs. What food remained was placed in the
charge of another woman until it was required by the matron. In this
connection Mr. Morgan says: "This plan of life shows that their
domestic economy was not without method, and it displays the care and
management of women, low down in barbarism, for husbanding their
resources and for improving their conditions."

[47] The reader is referred to Morgan's interesting _Houses
and House-Life of the Aborigines_. It is from this work that
many of the facts I give have been taken.

In this statement, made by one who was intimately acquainted with the
customs of this people there is surely confirmation of what I