[J.VMBS] THE DOWNFALL OF THE HURON NATION 319 



were sheathed in bark overlapping to shed the rain and snow. Another 

 row of horizontal poles kept these huge bark shingles in place. Along 

 either side of the interior were scaffolds or bunks about four feet from 

 the ground which, when covered with furs, furnished the sleeping com- 

 partments. The space beneath was the store-house for fuel and cooking 

 utensils. There was a compartment at the end of the house used as a 

 storeroom for corn, fish, sunflowers and other articles of food. Alomg 

 the upper poles were hung their bows and arrows, clothing, skins and 

 clusters of ear corn. Down the middle were the fires, each one 

 furnishing heat for two families. (The smoke escaped by the long 

 narrow opening left at the top of the house. These houses varied in 

 length, in some cases being 200 feet in length. The long houses were 

 not necessarily straight but followed the configuration of the land upon 

 which they were constructed. Picture to yourself such a house, an 

 abnormal sleeping car with ten fires built down the aisle and crowded 

 with twenty Indian families. You will at once understand that such a 

 hou<e might be a bedlam, reeking with smoke, where privacy was un- 

 known and where the customs of even early civilization could scarce find 

 room for development'. The effect of a spirit infected brawler, a half- 

 crazed medicine man or the victim of an infectious disease may be more 

 readily imagined than described. 



Perhaps the pen of a ready writer or the tongue of one gifted with 

 rare imagination might weave a story of romance about the fires of one 

 of these Huron long houses, but a careful reading of the descriptions of 

 the Jesuit Fathers, eye-witnesses of their degraded life, compels us to 

 say that the romance existed mainly in the imagination of the writer. 

 I give you one passing picture from the pen of Parkman : 

 " He who entered on a winter night beheld a strange spectacle : the 

 vista of fires lighting the smoky concave; the bronzed groups encircling 

 each, — cooking, earing, gambling or amusing themselves with idle 

 badinage ; shrivelled squaws, hideous with three score years of hardship ; 

 grisly old warriors, scarred with Iroquois warclubs; young aspirants, 

 whose honours were yet to be won; damsels gay with ochre and wam- 

 pum : restless children pellmell with restless dogs. Now a tongue of 

 resinous flame painted each with feature in vivid light; now the fitful 

 gleam expired, and the group vanished from sight, as their nation has 

 vanishofl from history." 



(Introduction to " The Jesuits in North America." p 14.) 

 Beforo we tell how the Iroquois flung themselves like a bomb into 

 the mids. of this people and scattered the survivors in so many direc- 

 tions, we must introduce into the story the element that adds so much 

 human interest to the tale. 



