64 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
different continents that communism has widely prevailed among them, and 
that the influence of this ancient practice had not entirely disappeared 
among the more advanced tribes when civilization fmally appeared. The 
common meal-bin of the ancient and the common tables of the later Greeks 
seem to be survivals of an older communism in living. This practice, though 
never investigated as a specialty, may be shown by the known customs of 
a number of Indian tribes, and may be confirmed by an examination of the 
plans of their houses. 
Our first illustration will be taken from the usages of the Iroquois. 
In their villages they constructed houses, consisting of frames of poles cov- 
ered with bark, thirty, fifty, eighty, and a hundred feet in length, with a 
passage-way through the center, a door at each end, and with the interior 
partitioned off at intervals of about seven feet. Hach apartment or stall 
thus formed was open for its entire width upon the passage-way. These 
houses would accommodate five, ten, and twenty families, according to the 
number of apartments, one being usually allotted to a family. Each house- 
hold was made up on the principle of kin. The married women, usually 
sisters, own or collateral, were of the same gens or clan, the symbol or 
totem of which was often painted upon the house, while their husbands and 
the wives of their sons belong to several other gentes. The children were 
of the gens of their mother. While husband and wife belonged to different 
gentes, the preponderating number in each household would be of the same 
gens, namely, that of their mothers. As a rule the sons brought home their 
wives, and in some cases the husbands of the daughters were admitted to the 
maternal house. Thus each household was composed of a mixture of per- 
sons of different gentes; but this would not prevent the numerical ascend- 
ency of the particular gens to whom the house belonged. In a village of 
one hundred and twenty houses, as the Seneca village of Tiotohatton 
described by Mr. Greenbalgh in 1677,’ there would be several such houses 
belonging to each gens. It presented a general picture of Indian life in all 
parts of America at the epoch of European discovery. Whatever was 
gained by any member of the household on hunting or fishing expeditions, 
! Documentary History of New York, i, 13. 
