11 
the deposit and from there west and then south for about 30 feet, may 
indicate where three walls of a house stood. The single, straight row of 
post holes, west of deposit 19, may represent the wall of another house, 
and the rows in deposit 20 also suggest that a small house, with entrances 
at east and west, stood on this part of the site. One cannot easily account 
for the large numbers of other irregularly distributed groups' of post holes, 
in which no definite arrangement is apparent, seen in heaps 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 
11, and 13, except on the assumption that they represent several successive 
structures, each in a different position and of different dimensions. 
The outline of the level top of the hill indicates that the village was 
long and narrow rather than circular, as at Hochelaga. It is possible that 
the houses stood in the clear space on each side of the row of refuse deposits 
in the middle of the more or less level top of the hill. There would be room 
for about twenty-four houses, each about 125 feet long and 30 feet wide, 
in four separate rows, the space between the rows and the houses in each 
row being about 20 feet. 
The houses here were probably of the same type as those at Hochelaga, 
which Cartier describes as follows: “There are some fifty houses in this 
village, each about fifty or more paces in length, and twelve or fifteen in 
width, built completely of wood and covered in and bordered up with 
large pieces of the bark and rind of trees, as broad as a table, which are 
well and cunningly lashed after their manner. And inside these houses 
are many rooms and chambers; and in the middle is a large space without 
a floor, where they light their fire and live together in common. Afterwards 
the men retire to the above-mentioned quarters with their wives and 
children” (pages 156-157). The Mohawk houses described by Van Curler 
were similarly constructed, but exceeded those of Hochelaga in dimensions; 
he gives the height as “22 to 23 feet,” and states that they were “mostly 
flat at the top” (Wilson, page 87). According to Bartram (page 40) the 
roofs of the Onondaga houses were rounded. 
RESOURCES AND MATERIALS USED BY THE PEOPLE 
The people of this site, as is indicated by the results of the explorations, 
depended on a variety of natural products for food and for materials from 
which to make clothing and artifacts. 
FOODSTUFFS 
Both vegetal products and animal flesh were used as food. That the 
people did not exercise much discrimination in the choice of animal foods 
is suggested by the presence of bones of animals that would be considered 
unfit for food by whites. In this respect the inhabitants did not differ 
from other Iroquois. 1 
No evidence was discovered of the existence of a taboo respecting 
the disposal of the bones of animals, as among some Algonkian tribes, 
mentioned in the Jesuit Relations of 1636 (X, 164). The bones of the 
beaver and porcupine, in particular, which an Algonkian Indian would not 
throw where they could be gnawed by dogs (Beauchamp, 4:252), were 
here found in the refuse along with the bones of other animals. 
’Golden (I. 12) says be was told by a Mohawk sachem, “with a Kind of Pride, that a Man eats every Thin 
without Distinction, Bears, Cats, Dogs, Snakes, Frogs, etc , intimating that it is Womanish, to have any Dolicac. 
ir. the Choice of Food ” 
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