Post by awanita62 on Oct 9, 2014 11:44:35 GMT -6
The long house can be found through out 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 tee pee 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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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 tee pee 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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