These eighteen villages contained about two thousand warriors, and
about thirty thousand people in all. The houses were in the shape of
tunnels, and were thatched with the bark of trees. Each lodge or house
would be about 120 feet long, more or less, and 36 feet wide, with a
10-foot passage-way through the middle from one end to the other. On
either side of the tunnel were placed benches 4 feet high, on which
the people slept in summer in order to avoid the annoyance of the
fleas which swarmed in these habitations. In winter time they slept on
the ground on mats near the fire. In the summer the cabins were filled
with stocks of wood to dry and be ready for burning in winter. At the
end of each of these long houses was a space in which the Indian corn
was preserved in great casks made of the bark of trees. Inside the
long houses pieces of wood were suspended from the roof, on to which
were fastened the clothes, provisions, and other things of the
inmates, to keep them from the attacks of the mice which swarmed in
these villages. Each hut might be inhabited by twenty-four families,
who would maintain twelve fires. The smoke, having no proper means of
egress except at either end of the long dwelling, and through the
chinks of the roof, so injured their eyes during the winter season
that many people lost their sight as they grew old.
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