Strands: This unit includes lessons and activities for: • “Who Are We”? Students learn about the Haudenosaunee today who live on territories and in urban areas of Western New York • “Who am I?: students learn how clans help individual Haudenosaunee identify who they are and how they relate to each other. • “Connecting with the Past and the Future”, where students see how clans support the traditions of the community and shape the role of coming generations” • Longhouse living: the extended family Duration: Two 40 minute sessions Group Size: Setting: Classroom, Internet—website video and sound bites New York State K-8 Social Studies Framework (2015) • 4.2a2, 4.2b, 4.2c1 Common Core Learning Standards for ELA and Literacy • Reading Standard 3; Speaking and Listening 1 & 4 Social Studies Practices • A2, A6, C5 Overview: [need to write this] Guiding questions: What is a traditional longhouse? How does it reflect the concepts of clan and an extended family? How does the word “longhouse” serve as a metaphor today? Critical Content: to understand that the Haudenosaunee are still present today and that their traditional territories continue to be in New York State and Canada. Student Objectives: Students will • As part of a group, plan and build a longhouse. • Learn how the traditional longhouse reflected the Haudenosaunee concept of family. • Understand the word “longhouse” as a metaphor in today’s community TEACHERS NOTE: For more information and activities related to longhouses and longhouse living, see the “Economy” and the “Land Use” curriculum Units. This includes a “build a village” activity, which may be played as part of this unit, if desired. Background: What is a Haudenosaunee longhouse? The longhouse, which is the traditional Haudenosaunee home, was a long, narrow bark-covered lodge that people extended as their families grew. As Haudenosaunee people are matrilineal, residents of these longhouses included women from the same clan, as well as their spouses and children. Since the 19th century, the term also refers to the actual building where communities hold their ceremonies and council meetings. People who follow the Code of Handsome Lake (called Gaiwi:yoh in Seneca) are referred to as “Longhouse people”, as the term also means the spiritual teaching and practices associated with the traditional beliefs of the Haudenosaunee. Longhouse in Tuscarora is Goo-nea-seah-neh, meaning “The old style of house.” In Seneca, it is called ganöhse:sgeh (gaw-nonh-says-gayh), meaning “longhouse at”).

 

Lesson 2: Longhouse Living: the extended family How did the traditional Long House reflect those concepts?
Figure 1: Drawing of a longhouse. From http://rewild.com/anthropik/2007/07/nine-nations-the-longhouse/. Our ancestors built longhouses covered with elm bark, some of which were 300-400 feet long. They usually consisted of a pole frame, 15-20 feet wide, and an arching roof about 25 feet tall. There could be from 3 to 50 such longhouses in one village. Longhouse lifestyle of the past consisted of several families living under one roof, who were all related on the female side. This is the extended family concept. The clan of the family would be painted or carved over the doorway and all clan members from any nation would be welcomed in that house. Down the center of the longhouse would be a central path where the family fires were kindled. Two nuclear families would share that fire. Women were considered the owners of the house and of the household goods. When a man married, he moved into the longhouse of his wife. Their children shared the identity of the mother’s family. The mother’s brothers were the principle male role models for the children. The mother’s parents had the principle child-rearing responsibilities. The villages would relocate every generation in order to seek more fertile soil, more firewood, or more abundant game. Families also needed to move in order to “refresh” the home. (Longhouses were long-term homes, but not permanent. Wood and bark deteriorated or became infested with bugs, which would make it difficult to rebuild where they were). In 1851, Lewis Henry Morgan described the longhouse in this way: When single, it was about twenty feet by fifteen upon the ground, and from fifteen to twenty feet high. The frame consisted of upright poles firmly set in the ground, usually five upon the sides, and four at the ends, including those at the corners. Upon the forks of these poles, about ten feet from the ground, cross-poles were secured horizontally, to which the rafter, also poles, but more numerous and slender, were adjusted. The rafters were strengthened with transverse poles, and the whole were usually arranged to form an arching roof. After the frame was completed, it was sided up, and shingled, with red elm or ash bark, the rough dies out. The bark was flattened and dried, and then cut in the form of boards. To hold these bark boards firmly in their places, another set of poles, corresponding with those in the frame, were placed on the outside; and by means of splints and bark rope fastenings, the boards were secured horizontally between them. It usually required four lengths of boards, and four courses form the ground to the rafters to cover a side, as they were lapped at the ends, as well as clapboard; and also in the same proportion for the ends. In a like manner, the roof was covered with bark boards, smaller in size, with the rough side out and the grain running up and down; the boards being stitched through and through with fastenings, and thus held between the frames of poles, as on the sides. In the center of the roof was an opening for the smoke, the fire being upon the ground in the center of the house, and the smoke ascending with the guidance of a chimney. At the ends of the house were doors either of bark hung on hinges of wood, or of deer or bear skins suspended before the opening. Over one of the doors was cut the tribal device of the head family. Within, upon the two sides, were arranged wide seats, also of bark boards, about two feet from the ground, well supported underneath, and reaching the entire length of the cabin. Upon these they spread their mats or skins, and also their blankets, using them as seats by day and couches at night, similar berths were construction on each side, about five feet above these, and secured to the frame of the house, thus furnishing accommodations for the family. Upon the cross-poles, near the roof, was hung, in bunches, braided together by the husks, their winter supply of corn. Charred and dried corn and beans were generally stored in bark barrels and laid away in corners. Their implements for the chase, domestic utensils, weapons, articles of apparel and miscellaneous notions were stored away and hung up, whenever an unoccupied place was discovered. A house of this description would accommodate a family of eight, with the limited wants of the Indian and afford shelter for their necessary stores, making a not uncomfortable residence.” As families grew, people would extend the ends of the longhouse to accompany new family members. The daily life inside that longhouse was not easy. Water had to be hauled from a distance, as was firewood. Ashes had to be carried out from time to time. The houses were thought to be fairly smoky and drafty. They could become infested with bugs, mice, rats, or snakes. People did not have much space. The sleeping platforms were only about 12” off the ground. It was up to the women to establish order within the longhouse. The fire served as their way to provide a central gathering place in order to eat, share and teach.

 

Figure 2: Interior of the longhouse at Ganondagan State Historic Site, Victor, NY www.ganondagan.org Archaeological evidence and written documentation by people who visited the Haudenosaunee communities indicate that plank, or “short” houses replaced these traditional longhouse by the mid- 1700s. What are Haudenosaunee plank, or short houses? The early documented plank houses had a similar interior plan as did the longhouses. There were sleeping compartments on each side, a fire pit in the center and doorways at each end. Members of the same clan built these houses in clan clusters.  Figure 3: Drawing of Seneca cabin by Adam Hubley, during Sullivan’s invasion, 1779. Taken from his Journal Following General John Sullivan’s invasion of Haudenosaunee Territory during the American Revolution, where American soldiers burned village houses, crops and orchards, the British Rangers stationed at Fort Niagara helped the Haudenosaunee refugees build plank houses. They built these cabins on the Buffalo Creek, Tonawanda, and Cattaraugus territories. Some of these cabins still exist at Tonawanda. Originally, these cabins probably had central smoke holes. In this example, the house has been altered to accommodate an end fireplace or woodstove chimney.
 Figure 4: A Seneca cabin on the Tonawanda Territory, built about 1780. Photo taken in the 1930s. In this third example, a drawing of Red Jacket’s cabin at Buffalo Creek Reservation, this plank house or cabin looks like any cabin built in the region in the early 1800s.
Figure 5: Red Jacket’s cabin at Buffalo Creek Reservation, early 1800s Buffalo and Erie County History Museum Library Modern Longhouses in Haudenosaunee communities are frame buildings with a door at each end. These buildings serve as the ceremonial centers, ritual place for weddings, funerals, medicine dances, annual ceremonies, and sometimes council meetings of the traditional chiefs and clan mothers. The modern Longhouse has a woman’s side and a man’s side, which reflects a main part of the social organization of the Haudenosaunee.