The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century | Page 7

with frequent blindness.
Another annoyance was the fleas; and a third, the unbridled and unruly
children. Privacy there was none. The house was one chamber,
sometimes lodging more than twenty families.
[ One of the best descriptions of the Huron and Iroquois houses is that
of Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 118. See also Champlain (1627), 78;
Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 31; Vanderdonck, New
Netherlands, in N. Y. Hist. Coll., Second Ser., I. 196; Lafitau, Mœurs
des Sauvages, II. 10. The account given by Cartier of the houses he saw
at Montreal corresponds with the above. He describes them as about
fifty yards long. In this case, there were partial partitions for the several
families, and a sort of loft above. Many of the Iroquois and Huron
houses were of similar construction, the partitions being at the sides
only, leaving a wide passage down the middle of the house. Bartram,
Observations on a Journey from Pennsylvania to Canada, gives a
description and plan of the Iroquois Council-House in 1751, which was
of this construction. Indeed, the Iroquois preserved this mode of
building, in all essential points, down to a recent period. They usually
framed the sides of their houses on rows of upright posts, arched with
separate poles for the roof. The Hurons, no doubt, did the same in their
larger structures. For a door, there was a sheet of bark hung on wooden
hinges, or suspended by cords from above.
On the site of Huron towns which were destroyed by fire, the size,
shape, and arrangement of the houses can still, in some instances, be
traced by remains in the form of charcoal, as well as by the charred
bones and fragments of pottery found among the ashes.
Dr. Taché, after a zealous and minute examination of the Huron
country, extended through five years, writes to me as follows. "From
the remains I have found, I can vouch for the scrupulous correctness of
our ancient writers. With the aid of their indications and descriptions, I
have been able to detect the sites of villages in the midst of the forest,
and by time study, in situ, of archæological monuments, small as they
are, to understand and confirm their many interesting details of the
habits, and especially the funeral rites, of these extraordinary tribes." ]
He who entered on a winter night beheld a strange spectacle: the vista
of fires lighting the smoky concave; the bronzed groups encircling

each,--cooking, eating, gambling, or amusing themselves with idle
badinage; shrivelled squaws, hideous with threescore years of hardship;
grisly old warriors, scarred with Iroquois war-clubs; young aspirants,
whose honors were yet to be won; damsels gay with ochre and
wampum; restless children pellmell with restless dogs. Now a tongue
of resinous flame painted each wild feature in vivid light; now the fitful
gleam expired, and the group vanished from sight, as their nation has
vanished from history.
The fortified towns of the Hurons were all on the side exposed to
Iroquois incursions. The fortifications of all this family of tribes were,
like their dwellings, in essential points alike. A situation was chosen
favorable to defence,--the bank of a lake, the crown of a difficult hill,
or a high point of land in the fork of confluent rivers. A ditch, several
feet deep, was dug around the village, and the earth thrown up on the
inside. Trees were then felled by an alternate process of burning and
hacking the burnt part with stone hatchets, and by similar means were
cut into lengths to form palisades. These were planted on the
embankment, in one, two, three, or four concentric rows,--those of each
row inclining towards those of the other rows until they intersected.
The whole was lined within, to the height of a man, with heavy sheets
of bark; and at the top, where the palisades crossed, was a gallery of
timber for the defenders, together with wooden gutters, by which
streams of water could be poured down on fires kindled by the enemy.
Magazines of stones, and rude ladders for mounting the rampart,
completed the provision for defence. The forts of the Iroquois were
stronger and more elaborate than those of the Hurons; and to this day
large districts in New York are marked with frequent remains of their
ditches and embankments.
[ There is no mathematical regularity in these works. In their form, the
builders were guided merely by the nature of the ground. Frequently a
precipice or river sufficed for partial defence, and the line of
embankment occurs only on one or two sides. In one instance, distinct
traces of a double line of palisades are visible along the embankment.
(See Squier, Aboriginal Monuments of New York, 38.) It is probable
that the palisade was planted first, and the earth heaped around it.