the top of the roof a space of
about a foot was left open for the entrance of light and the escape of
smoke, there being neither windows nor chimneys. At either end was a
door, covered commonly with a skin fastened at the top and loose at the
bottom. In the winter-season these entrances were screened by a porch.

In one of these long houses a number of families lived together in a
way that carried out in {38} all particulars the idea of one great
household. Throughout the length of the building, on both sides, were
partitions dividing off spaces a few feet square, all open toward the
middle like wide stalls in a stable. Each of these spaces was occupied
by one family and contained bunks in which they slept. In the aisles,
between every four of these spaces, was a fire which served the four
families. The number of fires in a lodge indicated, quite nearly, the
number of persons dwelling in it. To say, for instance, a lodge of
five fires, meant one that housed twenty families.

This great household lived together according to the community-idea.
The belongings of individuals, even of individual families, were very
few. The produce of their fields of corn, beans, pumpkins, and
sunflowers was held as common property; and the one regular meal of the
day was a common meal, cooked by the squaws and served to each person
from the kettle. The food remaining over was set aside, and each
person might help himself to it as he had need. If a stranger came in,
the squaws gave him to eat out of the common stock. In fact, Indian
hospitality grew out of this way of living in common. A single family
would frequently have been "eaten out of {39} house and home," if it
had needed to provide out of its own resources for all the guests that
might suddenly come upon it.

We are apt to think of the Indian as a silent, reserved, solitary
being. Nothing could be further from the truth. However they may
appear in the presence of white men, among themselves Indians are a
very jolly set. Their life in such a common dwelling as has been
described was intensely social in its character. Of course, privacy
was out of the question. Very little took place that was not known to
all the inmates. And we can well imagine that when all were at home,
an Indian lodge was anything else than a house of silence. Of a winter
evening, for instance, with the fires blazing brightly, there was a
vast deal of boisterous hilarity, in which the deep g