84 
CHAPTEH, VII 
DWELLINGS 
With primitive as with civilized peoples, the centre of social 
life is the home; but just as the home of an Italian peasant differs 
greatly from that of a Norwegian, so the homes of the Canadian 
aborigines varied greatly one from another, in shape and in size, in 
the materials of which they were constructed, in their internal 
arrangements, and in the number of families that occupied them. 
Climatic, physiographic, and biological conditions all played a part 
in producing these variations; but cultural and historical influences 
were equally active, so that a type of dwelling that seemed to be 
peculiarly the ]n'oduct of one environment occasionally extended 
beyond the bounds of that environment into another where it 
appeared less suitable. 
All the aborigines of Canada, even the agricultural Iroquoians, 
were to a greater or less extent migratory. The prairie and northern 
Indians roamed almost continuously in search of game, and several 
years often elapsed before they revisited exactly the same localities. 
In these circumstances they required either portable dwellings, or 
dwellings that could be erected in an hour or two from the materials 
that nature supplied around them. The eastern Algonkians, who 
seldom lingered in one spot more than a few weeks, had much the 
same needs. One might have expectcfl more substantial dwellings 
from the Iroquoians, who were tied down by agriculture to a more 
sedentary life. Their dwellings were indeed larger than those of 
other tribes east of the Rocky mountains, but not more durable, for 
even they practically deserted their villages for three or four months 
each year in order to fish and hunt, to work on distant farms, or to 
trade with their neighbours.^ Moreover, “when there was no longer 
sufficient wood for their fires, or when the land, long tilled, produced 
scanty crops”,- they abandoned their villages entirely and erected 
new homes in another locality. Any dwelling that provided tolerable 
1 “ Jesuit Relations,” vol. x, p. 53: "Summer here fninonti flie Htirruis) is a very inconvenient 
season for instructhis the sav,a(ji-s. Their iradinc expeditious and tlie farms take e\'eryone away, 
men, women, and children, almost no one renuiins in the villages,” 
^ Ibid., xi, p. 7. 
