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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



may be applied to the houses on Long Island, where the same con- 

 ditions existed, and where the Indians were in subjection to those 

 of New England. Mr Silas Wood said : 



At the time of the first settlement of Long-Island, it appears that 

 the western part of it, if not the whole, was in a great measure bare 

 of timber. The Indians here, as everywhere else where they were 

 settled, annually burnt over the woods in order to clear the land, 

 to provide food for the deer and other game. There are numerous 

 facts to prove that, at the time of the first settlement of the Island, 

 the woods were destitute of underbrush, and that the large trees 

 were so scarce that it was deemed necessary to take measures for 

 their preservation. Wood, Silas, 3 



When the Dutch attacked an Indian village northwest of Green- 

 wich (then in New York) in 1644, it is said that the houses were 

 in " three rows set up street fashion, each Eighty paces long." In 

 the burning of these long houses 500 Indians perished. The long 

 house mentioned far up the Hudson river, at the time of its dis- 

 covery, was evidently outside of the Iroquois territory. It was of 

 bark, and in it lived 40 men and 17 women, with their chief. It also 

 contained a large store of provisions. This has been located in 

 various places from Catskill to Albany, but always in the Mahican 

 lands. 



There is a good description of the building of a Canadian Algon- 

 quin lodge in the Relation of 161 1, with a reference to the difference 

 there of the summer and winter lodge noted in New England : 



The women go to the woods, and bring away poles, and place 

 the base around the fire in a circle, and above fork them together 

 like a pyramid, in such a manner that they rest one against the 

 other directly above the fire, for there is the chimney. Upon the 

 poles they throw skins, or else mats, or pieces of bark; at the foot 

 of the poles, under the skins, are placed the sacks. The whole place 

 around the fire is strewn with pine leaves, in order not to feel the 

 dampness of the ground ; above the fir leaves are often thrown mats, 

 or the skins of sea wolves, as delicate as velvet. On this they 

 stretch themselves around the fire, having their heads upon the 

 sacks. . . In summer their lodges change in form: for they 

 make them large and long, in order to have more air : so they cover 

 them with pieces of bark or mats made with tender reeds, and which 

 are much more thin and delicate than ours of straw, so artistically 

 woven that when they are suspended the water rolls over them all 

 their length without penetrating. Relation, 161 1 



