Tooker] ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE HURON 41 



pended down the whole length of the house, a kind of bench 4 or 5 

 feet high of other sheets of bark, making a sort of canopy for the 

 bed (JE 17: 203-205; S 93). These benches were called andiclions 

 (JR 17: 203) [endicha (JE. 8: 107), garihagueu and eindichaguet 

 (S 94)]. In the summer, the Indians slept on this bench to escape 

 the fleas [mosquitoes?]; in the winter, they slept on the gromid 

 below on mats near the fire and close to one another (C 123; S 93). 

 The children slept in the warmest and highest place and the parents 

 next with no space between them or at the foot or head (S 93) . When 

 going to sleep, they simply lay down and muffled their heads in their 

 robes (S 93-94). A sleeping mat was used (S 72). In the space 

 beneath these benches was kept wood to burn in winter ( JE 8 : 109 ; 

 C 123 ; S 94) . Inside the door there was a storeroom for provisions 

 ( JE 8 : 107) . These enclosed porches at each end were used princi- 

 pally to hold large vats or casks of tree bark in which were stored well 

 dried and shelled corn (C 123; S 95). The logs, called aneincuny^ 

 used for keeping the fire in by being lifted a little at one end, were piled 

 in front of the house or stored on the porches {ague) (S 94). In the 

 middle of the house were suspended two big poles [ouaronta (S 95)] 

 from which pots were hung and on which clothing, provisions, and 

 other articles were placed to keep them dry and away from mice (C 

 123 ; S 95) . Smoked fish were stored in casks of tree bark (acha) ex- 

 cept leinchataon^ a fish which the Indians did not clean but hung with 

 cords in the roof of the house; if these fish were packed in a cask, 

 they would smell too badly and would become rotten at once (S 95).*^ 

 As the houses were made of bark that dried out and burned easily, 

 destruction of the village by fire was a constant threat ( JE 8 : 95, 105 ; 

 10: 35, 65, 145, 169; 14: 43-45). Thus, the most precious possessions 

 were put in casks and buried in deep holes outside the houses. Such 



. ^ The Iroquois lived In longhouses similai" to those of tlie Huron as late as 1700. One 

 hundred years later, bark houses were still made, but they were considerably shorter 

 and most houses were made of logs rather than bark (Jackson 1830 b : 15-16 ; Morgan 

 1852: 114; 1881: 65). In the early part of the 19th century very little was remembered 

 of the form of the old longhouses and of life in them (Morgan 1881 : 122). (Descriptions 

 of Iroquois houses may be found in Morgan 1852: 112-115; 1881: 119-121; 1901(1): 

 308-310 ; 1901(2) : 287-300 ; Beauchamp 1905 : 97-109.) 



The change In Iroquois houses from the 17th century to the present can be summarized 

 as both a change in materials used and size. Houses In the 17th century were made of 

 bark, a material replaced In the 18th century by logs, a material which was subsequently 

 replaced In the 19th and 20th centuries by frame construction. As Morgan found few 

 bark houses in the 19th century, so there are few log houses now being used by the 

 Iroquois. The change in size of the houses— from a longhouse occupied by many nuclear 

 families to that occupied by a single family — occurred during the 18th century. The 

 first step in this change was that to a bark house of shorter length than the old long- 

 house, but otherwise constructed in the same manner. 



The families who occupied the old type of longhouse probably formed an economic unit : 

 the provisions were common property and what was taken in the hunt and raised by 

 agriculture was for the common benefit of the residents of the longhouse, although probably 

 In practice these products were owned by individuals or Individual families and when 

 one family exhausted Its supply, they were given food by others (Morgan 1881 : 64-67, 

 121). 



