120 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
It lies to the westward of Canagora (Canandaigua) about thirty miles, con- 
tains about 120 houses, being the largest of all the houses we saw, the 
ordinary being fifty to sixty feet long, with twelve and thirteen fires in one 
house. They have a good store of corn growing to the northward of the 
town.” 
The “‘long-house” of the Iroquois, from which they called themselves, 
as one confederated people, Ho-de’-no-sau-nee (People of the Long- House), 
was from fifty to eighty and sometimes one hundred feet long. It consisted 
of a strong frame of upright poles set in the ground, which were strength- 
ened with horizontal poles attached with withes, and surmounted with a 
triangular, and in some cases with a round roof. It was covered over, both 
sides and roof, with large strips of elm bark tied to the frame with strings 
or splints. An- external frame of poles for the sides and of rafters for the 
roof were then adjusted to hold the bark shingles between them, the two 
frames being tied together. 
See es 
Beeeeoe es 
ie 
Fic. 13.—Ground-plan ‘ene Long-House. 
The interior of the house was comparted at intevals of six or eight 
feet, leaving each chamber entirely open like a stall upon the passage way 
which passed through the center of the house from end to end. At each 
end was a doorway covered with suspended skins. Between each four 
apartments, two on a side, was a fire-pit in the center of the hall, used in 
common by their occupants. Thus a house with five fires would contain 
twenty apartments and accommodate twenty families, unless: some apart- 
ments were reserved for storage. They were warm, roomy, and tidily- 
kept habitations. Raised bunks were constructed around the walls of each 
apartment for beds. From the roof-poles were suspended their strings of 
corn in the ear, braided by the husks, also strings of dried squashes and 
pumpkins. Spaces were contrived here and there to store away their accu- 
1 Documentary History of New York, vol. i, p. 13. 
