The Seneca canoeist we met earlier didn’t see himself as some lone warrior wandering around forests and lakes without purpose. His life had meaning and he held a deep connection to his community. And the bedrock of his community was his Clan.
Amongst all the clans of his Nation, he knew which one was his not because of his name but his clan’s symbol. For the Seneca, clans were represented by either a Bird or Animal symbol - the Deer, Hawk, Heron and Snipe were considered Bird symbols while Turtle, Beaver, Wolf and Bear were Animal symbols. Other Nations in the Haudenosaunee used different sets of symbols yet all served the same purpose. They were their connection to a lineage that began with an ancestral clan mother.
The importance of clan mothers cannot be overstated. For instance, women, specifically, the mothers in Iroquois society led the establishment of villages. And within a village, clan members shared the same communal home called a Longhouse. Although the mothers determined the location and size of the Longhouse, the actual construction of the structures was the role of the men in the clan and village. Writing of later Iroquois settlements in French controlled Canada, Richter explains,
…towns with longhouses and cornfields were female domains. Women took the initiative whenever Iroquois communities moved during the normal course of swidden1 cultivation, and the migration to Canada conformed to the broad outlines of that familiar process.2
The Longhouse in the village
As the young Seneca entered his village to return to his Longhouse, he did so through an opening in a protective palisade wall that surrounded the village. This wall was built to keep out wandering predatory animals such as bears and wolves and to provide some protection from attack from hostile tribes. Once inside he walked along the paths until he arrived at his own clan Longhouse (which I am sure led to some puzzled looks as to why he didn’t show up with a load of fish). As he entered the communal home though one of its two entrances he took a quick glance at his clan’s symbol attached above the door frame.
Entering the Longhouse, he pushed aside a hanging skin that served as a door and entered into a darkly lit building lightened only by the flickers of small fires that dotted the length of the building down to the other entrance at the far end. On each side of the fire was a series of bunks blocked off from the next set of bunks by a barrier. The air was thick with smoke despite the opening in the ceiling that allowed the smoke to escape. The thickness of the smoke briefly burned his eyes after leaving the fresh evening air of the forests and meadows surrounding the village. He was home.
To the Iroquois people, the longhouse meant much more than the building where they lived. The longhouse was also a symbol for many of the traditions of their society. Five nations formed the original Iroquois Confederacy. These nations shared a territory they thought of as a large longhouse. The Seneca, who lived in the western end of this territory, were the “Keepers of the Western Door” of the Longhouse. The Mohawks, who lived in the eastern end of the territory, were the “Keepers of the Eastern Door”. The Onondagas held the important role of “Keepers of the Central Council Fire and Wampum”. To the modern Iroquois people, the Longhouse remains a powerful symbol of the ancient union and is important to many traditions. - New York State Museum
Building a Longhouse
I have a keen interest in building construction having built homes in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Ontario. To me, the Iroquois Longhouse is no exception. It is a brilliantly designed structure using locally sourced materials and easily maintained. And it can be built without typical construction tools such as axes, hammers, nails and levels.
A Longhouse was simply that, a very long house. It wasn’t unique to the Seneca people. In fact it wasn’t unique for the Haudenosaunee, but they were the most well known builders of the LongHouse. Today we are used to homes for one or at most two families. Any more and we would call it an Apartment Building. Yet, within the resources available to the Iroquois, the Longhouse was a practical solution. It was a single large building to house multiple families all belonging to a single Clan. And each family had its own compartment and fire which it shared with its neighbours in the opposite compartment .
Structurally, the Longhouse had only two entrances, one on each end. Along the sides were platforms, some used as sleeping quarters, some used as storage and others used to store foodstuffs. Families were given one section of the Longhouse, usually the set of bunks between the barriers on one side of the structure. Opposite a family’s quarters would be another family’ section and between these two families they would place a common fire. This pattern would repeat itself down the length of the building with two families and a fire until the further end is reached and the second entrance. Above each fire was a hole in the ceiling for smoke to escape, but as you can imagine, smoke lingers and spreads. This often led to smoke related illnesses such as late age blindness.
Despite its durability and functionality, the Longhouse was surprisingly simple to construct using locally sourced resources. After clearing a suitable site of bushes and grasses, a dozen or so flexible structural elements were prepared from young trees (saplings) such as the Eastern White Pine. These were then inserted into holes dug into the ground at regular intervals in a grid pattern and then packed with earth to make them fast and stable. Sometimes these poles were given a natural preservative by charring or burning the bottoms of the poles to prevent rotting. The tops of each pole was then bent over to meet the tops of the opposite pole, then bound together at the top with leather bindings. This provided the supporting structure for the house. It was long and narrow with the total size dependent on the length of the poles and the number of paired poles. It was essentially a long house.
This structure was covered with bark strips overlapped to make the walls and roof water-tight. The structure was essentially an arc with a subtle point at the top where the poles met. (Later structures imitated European structures with walls and a distinctive roof but this was not traditional.) The ends of the structure was walled off with an opening and covered with skins to create a door of sorts. This created quite a warm and weather-proof structure for the families that would call it home.
The floor was simply packed earth. Perhaps skins may have been provided for sitting and for keeping items off the floor. A clever use of the walls was to build a series of bunks stretching down the entire length of the building and may have included a second level or even a third. The bunks allows foodstuffs and its inhabitants from directly laying on the floor. This gave some protection against rodents. One would hope they were built strong enough. If not, pity the person sleeping on the bottom bunk only to be awoken by a crash and his family member planted firmly on top of him. During the day these bunks would be used for storage, laying out of skins and whatever else a handy table could be used for.
Several depressions were dug into the floor between the bunks to form a fire pit. To let smoke escape (well, most of it), holes were cut into the roof above the fire pits. Of course, this meant some rain and snow entered through the holes but it was a manageable nuisance.
Life in a Longhouse
Cooking in winter and cold days might have been an issue for the inhabitants, especially those in charge of providing meals, which usually were the women and girls. Remember this is an enclosed space and cooking and heating requires fires. During warmer days, cooking would be done outside on fires some distance away from the building.
A longhouse was truly an amazing, innovative structure. It was simple to construct, even simpler to repair and maintain. And it housed under one roof an entire group of families which were most likely matrimonially related. Of course, a longhouse did not exist in isolation. Many more would have been built for other groups of families all within a close proximity to each other. And to protect the settlement against from dangers from without, a tall, sturdy palisade ringed the settlement. And they had much to worry about. Large animals such as wolves and bears and even wolverines inhabited the forests of the north east in vast numbers. More worrying than any animals were enemy warriors intent on stealing food and persons as they made their way through the territory.
Which is why our young Seneca man after returning from his ill-fated fishing trip filled with dread and fear was glad to finally be home. Entering his clan’s longhouse might be another story as he has to explain to his mother why he has no catch for the day. I am sure he entered his bunk feeling both relieved he was not a prisoner. Tomorrow is another day. Tomorrow he will try again - but this time not beyond Seneca lands.
Next: The Iroquois and Missionaries