# Native American Dwellings/Part two "The long house"



## Awanita (Dec 19, 2014)

The long house can be found throughout the northeast Native Americans, the southern woodland and Mississippian tribes and the coastal northwest. Evidence of the long house’s influence on the white Americans can still be found in our society today; for example through the twenties on into the early sixties the south was plentiful with shot gun houses as they were called by the sharecroppers. The shot gun house was divided into three rooms side by side with a door at each end. If you were to open the front door you could look right out the back door. I know this from experience; I lived in a shot gun house until I was sixteen. Also we can see that the modern day trailer house resembles the long house.

The long house was longer than wide and often contained many families some of the long houses were up to one hundred and sixty feet in length and twenty four feet wide. This size of a long house was used by small communities. The most common long house would house about twenty families and measure around eighty feet long and twenty four feet wide. Just as our modern day trailer or shot gun house the long house had a door at one end and possibly one on the side. Each family had a small section that petitioned off from the main room where the councils and story tellers addressed the whole family or community. Each family contributed to the daily needs of each other. Each family or member had a special job or duty to perform.

How was the long house built? Well unlike the long houses of the northwest coast the wood that was used for the northeast and southern long houses were laid vertically instead of horizontally. The medium sized saplings were sharpened and also fire hardened. Fire hardening was a process that took moister from the wood and cured the wood to make it more durable. During this process the base was sharpened to a point. After the poles were hardened they were driven into the ground to make the outer wall. It could take up to a thousand to twelve hundred sapling poles to build one long house. After the walls were constructed, strips of bark would be woven in between the line of poles to give it more stability and to weather proof the walls. Some Native American tribes also used clay as a chinking. (Side note: About five miles from where I live is an old Quapaw village and burial ground and large chunks of clay chinking can still be found.)

Once the chinking was finished the roof was constructed and weather proofed. The roof was made by taking green saplings and bending them to create an arch style roof. The arch was held together with a series of smaller poles that ran length ways of the roof. Then the roof was covered with tree bark fashioned in a shingling manner and sewn together and fastened to the arched poles. Along the roof there were four to six smoke holes for ventilation and in the larger long houses two to three fireplaces would be built along the walls for warmth in the winter and also to serve as extra cooking fires.

The door to the long house just as the tipi was always open but covered in the winter to keep out the weather. The long house had no windows, so it was very dark inside the dwelling. Lighting for the long house was done by moving an area of shingles from the roof and replacing them when rain or snow began to fall. Wooden benches and animal hides made up the furniture that lined the walls of the main room where the council fire burned in the middle of the room. An interesting thing about the fire, when building a fire in a long house or tee pee it must be place by leaning the wood in the upright position so that it looks like a small version of a tee pee this allows the smoke to vent upward toward the smoke holes and does not fill the house with smoke.

Each member of the tribe had their own space where they kept their tools of their trade. If a person was a weaver then their weaving loom would be located in their small cubical. Some sites that have been excavated have recovered several different tools of that nature. In the main room where everyone met to eat and socialize there was a long bench that was raised up off of the floor where the elders and chief would sit to conduct business, ceremonies and settle disputes among the tribe. The long house was a tight knit place that brought families and communities together. As you go out in your communities look around and see if you can spot some influences of the long house that are still around today.

In two thousand and five I was working for a radio station in Blytheville Arkansas and had to cover a story in Gosnell Arkansas which was about four miles northwest of Blytheville. Boy was I excited the Arkansas Archeological society was doing a dig on the old air force base. The dig was on a woodland site, I got to witness first hand seeing the remains of a long house. You could see the outline of the walls which still showed the black charcoal from the wall logs. I also got to see several cooking hearths. Then we moved to another part of the dig to where the individual rooms were, where several arrow heads were uncovered. I also found it very interesting that the Archeologist could trace earthquake activity by the shifting of the soil. They had uncovered one of the fire hearths and one side had shifted about six inches lower than the other and you could even see the fault line that ran through the shift. It was an experience that I will always remember.


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## Plasticweld (Dec 19, 2014)

Well told, with good explanations of the building processes and how they were used.  I am left only with a desire to know more about the social aspect of the long house with so many families living under one roof.


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## Awanita (Dec 19, 2014)

Plasticweld said:


> Well told, with good explanations of the building processes and how they were used. I am left only with a desire to know more about the social aspect of the long house with so many families living under one roof.


 Plasticweld, it was like a joint family called a clan just as the Irish and Scotish people have clans. I belong to the Irish Clan of Daughtery and the wild Potato clan of the Cherokee. My mothers side is Irish and Cherokee, going back to a Gr grandmother who In 1740, married Cornelius Dougherty/Daugherty. Her name was Ah nee wa kee (Muskrat) Moytoy. There are seven clans in the Cherokee nation.

They are: 

Wild potato clan (sometimes called the Blind Savannah clan)
We were keepers of the land and gathers. I guess why I love to garden.

The Long Hairs or sometime called Twisters
They were the peacemakers and the peace chief usally came from this clan.

The Deer clan
They were known for their hunting and fast running. These were usally the messengers. They also cared for the animals when needed.

The Blue clan or Holly Blue clan
They were known to make medicines from a blue plant and most like how they got their name.

The Bird clan
They were in charge of caring for the birds if a warrior earned and eagle feather the bird clan was the ones that presented it to him in ceremony. 

The Wolf clan
The war chief would come from this clan and they were also concidered the protectors. Is concidered to be the largest of the clans.

The Paint clan sometimes they were called the Red Paint clan
The healers or medicine men and women came from this clan

sorry for the drawn out history lesson. I just am proud of my heritage. One other fact about social life, you could not marry anyone that was in the same clan it was concidered family. Punishable by death. 

Wado Awanita.


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## LeeC (Dec 19, 2014)

Awanita said:


> … sorry for the drawn out history lesson. I just am proud of my heritage.




And well you should be. Today their way of life may be thought of a primitive, but such speaks to our greed and ignorance. It's amazing how much they knew and understood, where all we do today is look down on their simpler views and reject their precepts. 


Being intimately familiar with the Toyahini [the Mountain Shoshone], I know how they respected their place in the natural world. Something we seem to have no realization of today, is how they understood that excesses in their interactions with other life forms and their habitat could diminish their own existence ;-) 


Of course cultures varied among the tribes, and I'm curious about some of the things I'm not familiar with. For instance, one time boating down the Mississippi I visited some large earth mounds on the Iowa side. I've wondered since what role such played in their cultures. Oh well 


Write on,
LeeC


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## Awanita (Dec 19, 2014)

Very good question Lee the mound served several roles in the mound builders culture. They served as sacred mounds or temple mounds where spiritual ceremonies took place. They served as social meeting places. They also served as burial grounds.

A tribe that lived on one mound after they were gone, another tribe might move on to it and burry over the top of the others. A temple mound you will not find much in the way of artifact because it wasn't used for everyday life. We have lots of mounds in northeast Arkansas, very few are tall because of the years of farming. Can you imagine how long it took to build them. All they had to work with was a flint or wooden shovel and a willow basket to carry it. 

I have seen some of the airal views of some of the Iowa mounds and others it is pretty interesting the shapes. I was very upset a few years back, one of the larger mounds outside my home town was deystored. The farmers went in an leveled it completely. It was about a good 7 foot tall mound. 

Awanita.


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## LeeC (Dec 19, 2014)

What human child learns today from following their parents to the toy store


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## Awanita (Dec 19, 2014)

haha I think I got what you are saying. If we do not learn and teach in return to keep the circle going we have lost our way and ways. Our youth will only know and learn what we teach them. Power rangers or the history of our people and how we became to be. Our traditons, our family, survival, life and death.


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## ppsage (Dec 21, 2014)

> Evidence of the long house’s influence on the white Americans can still be found in our society today


This strikes me as a personal opinion which isn't supported in the article, and perhaps it would be better if it were presented as such. There are plenty of European antecedents for longhouse style architecture, both as multi-family and personal residences. The strength of this piece is in its relation of personal experience and claims to an authority not supported only weakens that. It's actually more compelling to say that the shotgun house reminds the author of the longhouse through personal experience and leave the history conclusions to those with data to back up the assertion, which I suspect will probably fail. ----------------- I think this piece would grow a lot if it were more organized around the writer's adventures coming to understand the building. This is certainly where my interest is piqued most. ------------ The northwest Indian longhouses which I have visited at Kalama and Neah Bay used split cedar boards placed vertically similarly to the one pictured in this Wikipedia article. ------------- I am much enjoying these articles and encourage you to work on making them even better. pp


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## Firemajic (Dec 23, 2014)

I am starting to be a History buff! I enjoy your ability to be informitive and entertaining,. It is easy to see that this is a subject that is dear to your heart. Thank you for sgaring. Peace always...Julia


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## Awanita (Dec 23, 2014)

ppsage said:


> This strikes me as a personal opinion which isn't supported in the article, and perhaps it would be better if it were presented as such. There are plenty of European antecedents for longhouse style architecture, both as multi-family and personal residences. The strength of this piece is in its relation of personal experience and claims to an authority not supported only weakens that. It's actually more compelling to say that the shotgun house reminds the author of the longhouse through personal experience and leave the history conclusions to those with data to back up the assertion, which I suspect will probably fail. ----------------- I think this piece would grow a lot if it were more organized around the writer's adventures coming to understand the building. This is certainly where my interest is piqued most. ------------ The northwest Indian longhouses which I have visited at Kalama and Neah Bay used split cedar boards placed vertically similarly to the one pictured in this Wikipedia article. ------------- I am much enjoying these articles and encourage you to work on making them even better. pp


Wado I will work on them once again thank you. Awanita


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