MORGAN] HOUSES OF THE ONONDAGA-IROQUOIS. 1045) 
are curious about their ancient customs. It has passed into the traditionary 
form, and is limited to a few particulars. A complete understanding of the 
mode of life in these long-houses will not, probably, ever be recovered. In 
1743 Mr. John Bartram attended a council at Onondaga, and kept a journal, 
afterwards published, in which he inserted a ground plan of the long-house 
in which they were quartered. It is the first ground plan of one of these 
houses ever published, so far as the author is aware, and the only one prior 
to the appearance of Johnson’s Cyclopedia in 1875. 
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80 FEET LONG 
Fic. 14.—Bartram’s ground-plan and cross-section of Onondaga Long-House, in 1743. 
It should be noted that in 1696 Count Frontenac invaded Onondaga 
with a large French and Indian force, and that the Onondagas destroyed 
their principal village and retired. ‘The cabins of the Indians,” says the 
relator, ‘‘and the triple palisade which encircled their fort were found 
entirely burnt.” The new village visited by Mr. Bartram was probably 
quite near the site of the old. He says, ‘“‘ The town in its present state is 
about two or three miles long, yet the scattered cabins on both sides of the 
water are not above forty in number; many of them hold two families, but 
all stand single, so that the whole town is a strange mixture of cabins, inter- 
spersed with great patches of high grass, bushes and shrubs, some of peas, 
corn, and squashes. * * * We alighted at the council-house, where 
the chiefs were already assembled to receive us, which they did with a 
grave, cheerful complaisance according to their custom. They showed us 
where to lay our luggage, and repose ourselves during our stay with them, 
which was in the two end apartments of this large house. The Indians 
that came with us were placed over against us. This cabin is about eighty 
feet long and seventeen broad, the common passage six feet wide, and the 
apartments on each side five feet, raised a foot above the passage by a long 
1 Documentary History of New York, p. 332, 
