One hundred and forty years afterward the French explorer, La Salle, made several voyages up and down the Mississippi. He describes much the same state of things as do the earlier writers. The tribes still dwelt in comfortable cabins, sometimes constructed of bark, sometimes of mud,14 often of large size, in one case forty feet square, and having a dome-shaped roof. Nor was this village life confined to the more advanced tribes. The Dakota tribes, which include the Sioux and others, have been forced on the plains by the advancing white population, but when first discovered they were living in villages around the headwaters of the Mississippi. Their houses were framed of poles and covered with bark.15
Lewis and Clark, in 1805, found the valley of the Columbia River inhabited by tribes destitute of pottery, and living mainly on fish, which were found in immense quantities in the river. They describe them as living in large houses, one sometimes forming a village by itself. They describe one house capable of furnishing habitations for five hundred people. Other authorities could be quoted, showing that the Algonquin Indians, living in Eastern and Atlantic States, had permanent villages.16 The idea then, that the Indians are nothing but wandering savages, is seen to be wrong. It is well to bear this in mind, because it is often asserted that the Mound Builders must have been a people possessing fixed habitations. While this is doubtless correct, we see that it is also true of the Indians.17
There is another feature of Indian life which we will mention here, because it shows us a common element in the building of houses, seen alike in the pueblo structures of the West and the long houses of the Iroquois. That is, the Indian houses were always built to be inhabited by a number of families in common. All nations in a tribal state possess property in common. It is not allowed to pass out of the gens of the person who possesses it, but at his death is supposed to be divided among the members of his gens; in most cases, however, to those nearest of kin within the gens.18 This communism showed itself in the method of erecting houses.
The long house of the Iroquois was divided into apartments so as to shelter from one hundred to two hundred Indians. A number of these houses gathered together composed a village. These were quite creditable structures of Indian art, being warm and comfortable, as well as roomy. Should we examine the whole list of writers who have mentioned Indian villages, we would find them all admitting that the houses were usually occupied by a number of families, one in the Columbia Valley, as we see, sheltering five hundred persons.
There is no question but the pueblos were built by people holding property in common. They were, of course, erected by a more advanced people, who employed better materials in construction, but it is quite plain that they were actuated by the same instincts, and built their houses with the same design in view as the less advanced Indian tribes in other sections of the country. What we have described as the small houses in Arizona in the preceding chapter, in most cases includes several rooms, and we are told that in one section they “appear to have been the abode of several families.”19
One of the main points the Indians would have to attend to in the construction of their villages was how to defend them, and we can not do better than to examine this point. A French writer represents the villages of Canada as defended by double, and frequently triple, rows of palisades, interwoven with branches of trees.20 Cartier, in 1535, found the village of Hochelaga (now Montreal) thus defended. In 1637 the Pequot Indians were the terror of the New England colonies, and Capt. Mason, who was sent to subject them, found their principal villages, covering six acres, strongly defended by palisades.
