158 FOSSIL MEN. 



Hochelagans. Similar agricultural towns, some of 

 them on a larger 1 scale, existed among the Hurons and 

 Iroquois. Gaensera, a town of the Iroquois, destroyed 

 by the French in 1687, is described as built of wood 

 and bark, with granaries of bark, in the form of 

 towers, fifteen feet in diameter. Besides this, there 

 was a detached and fortified granary on a neighbouring 

 hill. The French reported that in this town, which, 

 judging from the number of fighting men, must have 

 been inhabited by three or four thousand people, they 

 destroyed 100,000 minots of corn in the granaries, 

 and 150,000 standing in the fields, or perhaps 750,000 

 bushels in all. Yet this and other cities destroyed in 

 the Indian wars were not rebuilt, the Iroquois being 

 disheartened and reduced in numbers, and they now 

 exist only as mounds and old earthworks, many of 

 them with no written history. 



Cartier tells us that the women were the principal 

 agriculturists. The men were hunters, fishermen, and 

 warriors. The women tilled the ground and carried 

 on most of the domestic manufactures. This was the 

 case generally among the semi-civilized Americans, 

 and, according to- our modern notions, it gives the 

 women a more advanced place than the men ; and as 

 women were often taken prisoners in war, it might be 

 a means of spreading the arts of life among the more 

 barbarous tribes. On the other hand, it allowed a 

 very speedy relapse into the condition of barbarous 

 hunters when a tribe was driven from its ancient 

 abode. 



