Iroquoian longhouses and villages.

A brief overview of Iroquois longhouse construction and design, as well as village design and fortifications.
The longhouse I'm specifically looking at is at Kana:ta village near Brantford.
Apologies for the shaky video. I didn't notice until editing, and I don't have the energy to go through the hassle of filming everything a second time.
This video was a long time coming.

[@TraceyIRL]

Proud Oneida here✊🏼! I love my culture🥰

[@yegirish]

It’s actually pretty brilliant to use the rack storage as a smokehouse/bug- and rodent-deterrent. Really creative solution.

[@t.j.payeur5331]

Our forests are not the same as they once were. Chestnut and elm were the dominant species, now it's oaks and maples. The elms were huge, you could get a slab of that tough bark as big as a sheet of plywood, and chestnuts are much more nutritious than acorns..

[@Apelles42069]

Indeed, another reason why there was close access to the forest: the food wealth made available by the native biodiversity

[@citrusblast4372]

why are chestnuts elm not dominant anymore? did the euros replace them?

[@t.j.payeur5331]

@@citrusblast4372 imported diseases killed them..elm bark beetles and Chestnut fungus blight killed almost all of them in the 19th and 20th centuries...

[@t.j.payeur5331]

@@Apelles42069 and their damned pigs ate up all of our forest food, they scoured everything from mushrooms to strawberries...

[@kar702]

I think diseases wiped them out. ( chestnut blight, Dutch elm disease)

[@w4gn0r]

I absolutely love your no bullshit approach to each video. No incessant self promotion, no mobile game plugs, no cramming your face into the camera for the first 5 minutes of a 7 minute video before you get to any actual content. Excellent speaking voice too. Subscribed and looking forward to more content.

[@MalcolmPL]

I'm glad you appreciate it. Principles have a cost.

[@HAYAOLEONE]

Same here.

[@onondowaga6852]

The biggest reason I subscribed to Malcolm P.L. is his no BS. approach.

[@mockermuris]

@@MalcolmPL may i ask that how the irokéz folks called this tipe of hut? its called gunyah in australian aborigin land and gunyho or kunyho in hungarian magyar, konyha=kitchen kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4OooHd5ra6qkKM író kéz = writing hand in hungarian magyar írókáz=write texts on pottery thanx for this vid

[@MalcolmPL]

The Mohawk word is kanónhsa’ǫ:weh.

[@KartarNighthawk]

Variations on this kind of communal living crop up in pretty much every agricultural society, and it's always interesting to see each group's spin on it; the differences between say, an Iroquoian longhouse and a Zulu kraal, etc. It's also great to just see the building itself. Read about them a lot, but seeing a functional replica is a whole other thing.

[@MalcolmPL]

A picture is worth a thousand words, and there are over twelve thousand pictures in this video.

[@Menzobarrenza]

@@MalcolmPL I really like your sense of humor.

[@motagrad2836]

Also the "viking" longhouses. In the Norse culture each longhouses also accounted for one boat, generally a longship. There were differences in construction, such as use of turf, and also defenses such as ringforts, but the similarities are very interesting. in Europe the mazes we're seen in older earthenwork "castles" and carries forward with forcing attackers to advance with their right side towards the walls and make a right turn when entering such that their shield would be on the wrong side. I also noted that the spacing of the cedar poles in the maze would allow defenders to strike through at those in the maze using spears or even arrows but make that much harder for attackers. Great information as the only thing mentioned in my grade school classes was the very basics of the longhouses design with no added information about the purposes of different levels, not details on construction, and nothing about the palisade let alone the entry maze. Wish I could do more than like and share your videos

[@gregschoonover8352]

Very educational and informative. Modern man needs to take a lesson from this life style

[@mantidream8179]

What an interesting structure. It's interesting to imagine the people interacting, caring for one another, and sharing stories within, around the fire.

[@MalcolmPL]

I'd find it strange. I'm so used to privacy and isolation in my modern life.

[@georgesheffield1580]

Similar to structures of northern Europe, central Africa, Asia minor and central and South America and SE Asia .

[@everdinestenger1548]

​@@georgesheffield1580 I agree, it is not coincidence but the most practical way to house a tribe

[@alga3106]

@Bastobasto don’t forget the Anglos and Spanish loved to abuse and torture natives who didn’t do forced labour and convert to Christianity. It’s interesting when people bring up native people and violence within their communities while glossing over the real devils who tortured, rxped, and killed up to 90% of the “new world”‘s original peoples with their dirty plagues (STD’s came from Eurasia and spread thanks to those gross men)

[@ComradeCorwin]

@@bastobasto4866 Wow. You're a genuine creep. How can you be as equally wrong as you are offensive?

[@gregbenwell6173]

My one grand daughter had a school project, a few years ago, to build a model of a long house for homework....her school is in Owego N.Y.! I had seen the long house that is on display at the New York State Fair Grounds in Syracuse N.Y. more than a few times and I had always admired it (reasons I will make clear in a moment)! Anyhow I built the longhouse with her, recalling the many visits to the Syracuse N.Y. site from memory, and built the model structure as I recalled it!! She got a "F" on her model of a long house!! AND NOW the reason why I admire the long house and why it is important to me! Though I built the model as closely as I could in a scale small enough to "transport on a school bus" the teacher failed her, because according to the teacher, her model, my model, was not "accurate" to how a long house is built.....even though I built is the same way as the example shown in THIS VIDEO!! And what truly floored me was her teacher told me that she had failed to build a "correct model", even though NOBODY took into fact I am actually part Iroquois Indian myself, so MY INTEREST in my own heritage was ignored!!! Frankly speaking I am not exactly certain what the teacher though the long house was made of, or what they actually LOOK LIKE!! Because while visiting the school for the "Grand parents day"....other examples of "long houses" looked more like log cabins then they did an actual long houses.....and those kids models had passing grades on them!!!!

[@MalcolmPL]

The teacher's education was clearly severely lacking. The rounded shape is typical of early designs. Many later period longhouses, particularly in heavily christianized communities had the more angular shape of a conventional house, in attempt to emulate the look of churches and euro-colonial houses.

[@SarahMacDonald1991]

Guess the “teacher” needs to see this video or a similar one.

[@quiricomazarin476]

@@MalcolmPL that's what I was thinking.

[@skengels]

ahaha, I had an assignment like that as a child, and my architect parents were stoked about it and went ham building the model themselves. They even made/borrowed miniatures from my toys as props. I would've liked to make it but they were having fun so I was happy for them. They did a beautiful job and it did look a lot like a log cabin (they got a good grade btw). It's nice to see this video now and how functional the longhouses are.

[@grovermartin6874]

@@MalcolmPL Depressing. In addition to the teacher's lack of knowledge, there was the teacher's lack of good heart.

[@ladyofthemasque]

Seeing all those poles planted in the ground as a deliberate future resource reminds me of how I read once that the Saami people (indigenous peoples of northern Scandinavia) would either use existing trees or plant trees with rot-resistant roots, such as spruce trees, specifically for using in their building efforts. When the trees were sufficiently large enough, they would "gird" the trees, which is to damage the bark all the way around so that the tree dies and becomes what is known as "dead standing wood". Once girded, they would build a structure up high on these trees, sort of like a log cabin on stilts, except the stilts were the dead standing trees. However, if there weren't enough trees in a good spot near where they were going to stay the winter, they would dig up a suitable large sapling, chopping off part but not all of its roots so that the roots sort of formed "feet" for the pole to sit upon, which might be partially reburied. (One such stilt-leg was usually preferred to still be embedded in the ground with its original root system intact, but ideally two or more for superior stability.) This little structure built up on these tree trunk stilts then became the cache for the family or clan. Doing so lifted it up out of the range of all manner of would-be pests, giving them a secure place in which to stash the bulk of their preserved food, raw hides, and so forth. It also ensured that it would be kept up out of the snows of winter, so that their food storage place could not be hidden by a high snowfall. There was usually a stout door on it, and a ladder which could be moved away to keep wild animals from climbing up and trying to break inside. he funny thing is, these would often look like little huts, because they would indeed have roofs and doors and walls and a floor, plus the tree trunks serving as stilts...and if it wasn't properly and fully rooted in the ground, the little huts on their stilts would shift and quake in strong winds... Or, in other words, they would "dance." And the moment you realize that, if you just think about the trunks of the trees, with their roots still mostly intact...you will realize they would look like chicken legs...and chicken feet. Yes, you heard it: the origins of Baba Yaga's hut with its "dancing chicken legs" was a real structure: a stilt-raised food cache hut! ...It does make me wonder, though, if any of these peoples ever thought of deliberately planting their seedlings in pre-laid positions for supporting buildings one day. Straight-boled trees such as spruces, cedars, and the like would work quite well for it. Yes, some would fall down due to various natural reasons, and yes you'd have to kill the trees to keep them from contiuing to grow & thus wrecking the overall structure...but surely enough would survive that they could just bring in supplemental boles to fill in the gaps. And while they'd have to trim off many branches, they could simply leave some mostly intact, and weave them into position for the support structure. I do wonder if any culture has ever tried that?

[@dntskdnttll]

I had also wondered, like you, whether those types of homes on stilts were the inspiration for Eastern Euro tales like Baba Yaga, told to children, of houses with four feet……their discrimination towards indigenous Sami and others (in Siberia) is long standing and well known, and it would not be surprising to find negative tales told by people who don’t use that practice, about those who do.

[@woodspirit98]

What are you trying to to say?

[@ninjaswordtothehead]

Your narration gave me the strange feeling you were describing past things you had seen with your own eyes. And that ending was just, *chef's kiss.* Excellent video.

[@hands2hearts-seeds2feedamu83]

Those are my PEOPLE, I have always been drawn to that type of life style. Even NOW, living like that makes me feel like there was a time when your family really cared about each other. I would love to visit these types of places. I grew up most my life in a log cabin, that my dad built.

[@Ascertivus]

This is the exact type of video I was looking for on longhouses. Thank you for such a fascinating, in-depth, informative piece of content. As expressed by others, I also really appreciate that you got straight to the point about everything. I don't see much of that on KZbin presently, and the pace of your video was refreshing. Great stuff.

[@billyjoel9313]

Their process of replanting after their migration is so intrinsically beautiful, how they immediately take care to work for their future generations, then when those children's children grow up they get to see those trees all grown and ready to be their new home.

[@joshuabradshaw9120]

Fascinating history! In the region of the west coast of Canada, the Pacific Northwest of the lower 48 states of the U.S. and the south of Alaska, the native peoples also built long houses. Although they are almost at the opposite end of North America from the Iroquois, they had a similar concept of buildings to dwell in.

[@KillerCammy85]

Thats not surprising, I imagine there was a lot of sharing of many things back then. It wasnt uncommon for some tribes to be nomadic and trade was common along the coast lines.

[@BuckBlaziken]

I recently found out I’m part Iroquoian, so I’ve been trying to research much about the Iroquois people and their culture. Some of the genius ideas and practices they had are genuinely surprising as some of these came as new lessons for me.

[@JohnSmith-fq3rg]

The shouldn't be suprising, they were modern humans genetically, so they were modern humans intellectually, and were just as capable of complex technology using the resources available to them just as we are now.

[@BonesyTucson]

Oh man it constantly blows my mind what folks can build with wood, rope, stone and dirt, and how to wisely but simply manage land and resources.

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

Excellent information! Such ingenuity in their designs.. Yes, "Come back and see it green and full of food for your grandchildren".... if we could only have that same goal in mind today!

[@originalzo6091]

I've never been so grateful for KZbin

[@Nothing-zw3yd]

We had a replica longhouse and stockade village at a park on our lake from 1963 to 1993 when it was torn down. It was built on the site of an actual settlement constructed hundreds of years ago. I spent a lot of time there as a kid.

[@charlesbaldo]

What town was that? I live in Irondequoit and we have lots of natural history

[@Nothing-zw3yd]

@@charlesbaldo Auburn, the replica was at Emerson Park at the north end of Owasco Lake. There isn't much to be found online about it anymore, and all traces of it are gone.

[@kevincage1641]

Haudenoshaunee Washtelo. I greet you in the Chanunpa of My Lakota Ancestors. Your Ancestors are honored greatly by your history lessons. I truly enjoyed the details of our Long Houses. Our forefathers were genius. Thank you again. Hoka He.

[@Luziferrum]

Hi there. Thanks for adressing the subject of insulation and warmth. It appears your ancestors followed pretty much the same strategy as mine did. They forewent a chimney and a heat retaining mass in favor of a smoky house safe from insects. In the lowlands of Germany people used oak for the timber posts, which also rotted away after a couple of decades. I'm surprised to see they used cedar in the Eastern woodlans as I always associated it with the Pacific Coast. Good to know. Over here charring of the ends is an idea of experimental archaeology, but as far as I know there's no proof they did it in earlier times. I wonder if people over here also moved their village to a new spot with undepleted soil. Evidence in the ground only shows villages moving up to 100 meters over generations. But that might be due to the newcomers building not exactly on top of the old building sites after a period of absence. I assume elm is more common around Lake Eerie and the birch the Anishinaabe used only appears in large quantities farther to the north?

[@MalcolmPL]

Another factor of heating that I forgot to mention is that a longhouse is going to be warm simply by virtue of housing thirty to two hundred people. On the subject of european houses, I’m not familiar with Germany, but in early iron age Britain the roundhouses would be burned at the end of their lives and people would move to a fresh site. On the subject of charred posts, I suspect it has to do with felling trees with stone axes. Normal they would get fire to do some of the work. On the subject of elm, about halfway up Ontario there is a shift of climate zone, from carolinian to boreal forest, and from healthy topsoil to Canadian Shield. Beyond this point birch is the only hardwood that really thrives. Birch does grow down here, but Birchbark isn’t as good as elm for building, it’s much thinner and weaker. These days elm hardly grows anywhere, Dutch elm disease crippled it decades ago and it’s only just started to recover.

[@ximono]

@@MalcolmPL In Norway people did (and still do) use birch bark as roof sheathing. It's easy to strip of and the tree won't die if you do it respectfully.

[@mazack00]

Nothing beats the longhouses the native americans built here on the west coast... Giant houses made of cedar trees. I got to visit a live recreation complete with experience run by chief Joseph back in the day. Absolutely stunning.

[@chipsdubbo4861]

Very nice, I love the little anecdote at the end about returning to your birthplace as an old man to see it reborn, I'm very aware of the fact that life sucked back then compared to today, and someone like me would barely make it a week before succumbing to any number of diseases, flora/fauna, or general exposure. But heck if it doesn't sometimes sound appealing when compared to the mundaneness of modernity. But I guess that's just the romanticized image speaking.

[@MalcolmPL]

We’re all about romanticism here. Got enough gritty realism in the modern world. This is a romanticism positive channel.

[@grovermartin6874]

@@MalcolmPL And we are all savouring the atmosphere you've resurrected here. I have appreciated the long house on the New York State fairgrounds, yet your visual and verbal recreation brings it all so much more alive. Now I just need to imagine the smell of the smoke. I grew up with elm wood fires. And elm trees' unique and beautiful vase shapes everwhere. People rent houses from air b-n-b. Wouldn't it be an invigorating experience to be able to spend a week in a real long house, in a real environment? (Minus the elm trees, of course.) Another romantic fantasy.

[@BonesyTucson]

I don't know if life really sucked that much back then. Life is always a struggle, especially for some, but all times have their share of beauty and love. Moderate agriculture with hunting-gathering still thrown in? I'd bet they had more leisure time, closer families and better overall physical health, not cramming themselves full of sugar and too many carbs, watching TV all the time, working 80 hours a week just to make some other person rich :)

[@jackp492]

You don’t give yourself enough credit, You’ve absorbed plenty of useful knowledge in your life, and no one lives alone. Life has an intuitive element too

[@KnzoVortex]

I mean, from what I can tell as an idiot whose spend too much time on KZbin and Wikipedia, there is a point to that sentiment. I like to believe a good portion Indian peoples seemed to live in a pretty bearable fashion with pretty good quality community, relatively harmonious and reciprocal with nature, and with the satisfaction of spiritual purpose and moral identity. In contrast, us folks of the US of A have managed to delicately craft something very different. We raise our children in comfortable private dwellings for the immediate family, some of us may not learn the meaning of the word community till school allows us to actually meet other people. And as we age, we inevitably come to learn that the main struggle of life is to cope with the system, primarily with school first, then beyond, and that the greater forces that be in this system are completely awful, but immovable and requiring your compliance, and thus most aim for little higher than just getting yourself out of the way of them. The quality and even presence of community generally varies from okay to abysmal and with how fetishised individualism is it's clear what the system wants from us, connection with nature varies from insufficient to totally insufficient - we spend infinitely more time exploring our (abusive) relationship of the free market than our relationship to the soil under us, and many of us were given little time to actually think about why we are even living as the powers that be think it is more important we correctly affix the mask which allow us to perpetuate them before we have any time to think beyond them, oh, and you might as well forget the notion of spirituality altogether. This lifestyle crushes the spirit of anyone, forcing us to cope with some degree of hedonism just to stomach it. It feels really compelling to say poeple liek the haudenosaunee lived in an infinitely more dignified manner than this, though I'm not sure of that says more about the merit of well developed hunter gatherer life or the depravity of the modern capitalist lifestyle. Probably something about both.

[@-_.._._--_.-.-_-_-_-...-.-]

The ancestors are happy you have shared this. We are grateful to you.

[@unrightist]

This is amazing. What an efficient and useful organizational structure for humans.

[@bobcharlie2337]

Man, i love the reforestry they practiced. I wish we would do that today. Not sit and wait around until things get bad to do something.

[@kyrerymmukk7446]

That was beautiful. The last part about returning to see your grandchildren thrive in the footprint of your old home made me cry.

[@kalrandom7387]

One of the best 11 minutes I've spent on a video in a long time.

[@miketacos9034]

This sounds super comfortable, I’m imagining chilling during the winter.

[@theproplady]

Can you imagine how cozy a structure like that would be once it's full of food, fully stocked and ready for winter?

[@hardwareful]

No overhyped speech, no constant background music and an interesting topic. I really enjoyed watching this video.

[@HerrAndreasSkog]

So much practical information and yet such a vivid image of the life these people lived and the cultural landscape they created! Goreous!

[@tomasrikona4021]

Thank you for sharing this video of your people and their histories with us brother. It was informative and interesting. You have a wonderful speaking voice. A trait from one of your ancestors I've no doubt. I am a Maori from NZ and it fills my heart with pride to see our indigenous brothers and sisters using the internet in such a positive way. I have developed a deep interest in the Iroquois nation and will endeavor to learn as much as I can about them. Keep up the good work. Kia kaha. May you have the strength to be strong.

[@AMPdphoto]

Gosh that last line was so lovely, “to return and see it green for your grandchildren” Beautiful

[@lundsweden]

Beautiful old long house, the builders had that rain curtain idea long before the modern age. It must be drafty though in cold and windy weather.

[@susanwestern6434]

I am surprised that the builders, at least in winter did not fill some of the gaps between the boards with moss or something similar. To stop the drafts. Also with rain and melting snow, how did they prevent flooding inside the longhouse? Having camped in a tent, it doesn't take much rain to flood it. So a shallow trench was dug to divert the water. I wonder if they did the same?

[@lundsweden]

@@susanwestern6434 For sure, this is a replica I guess. In early Australian Colonial times, they made similar huts, but with larger vertical slabs. They stuffed newspapers, wool or whatever they had in the (many) cracks in the walls.

[@pontythython1901]

Some thing I have always loved about native culture is that it is always enacted with sustainability in mind. This leads to a beautiful cyclical process resulting in basically zero Negative impact on the environment

[@Kaaxe]

So cool seeing how the longhouse solution for living was arrived upon by various cultures! But also as a life long gamer the purpose built opening in your defences is something I've done maybe thousands of times so it makes a lot of sense to me

[@mobilemollusc615]

This Is so beautiful! I have been trying to unlearn my native people prejudice. Thank you! This helped me see the Beauty in Iroquois peoples customs

[@stansfieldmcelroy]

Great Video. I visited the village as a child with school and remember it being a great day

[@GavinBisesi]

The longhouse design is so elegant! Really genius construction method, making a ton of value out of simple materials. Amusingly, the entrance maze defense is actually something you see people do in lots of town-building video games, for the exact same reasons - baiting attack from a known point and making enemies come single-file into 3 tough warriors at the opening.

[@wientz]

Wow everything you showed there makes a lot of sense....just like the Iroquios did in their day to day life

[@user-wv5fq8di2m]

Wow! This is the best video I've seen on the subject. Thanks!

[@peterfrance702]

This offers a window not only on the Iroquois but a fascinating insight into my own N European ancestors. Thank you.

[@MeUrWishGranted]

Love the maze! This whole civilization is incredible, thank you for sharing!

[@pittbullking87]

How interesting! At the Grand Village of the Natchez historic site in Natchez, Mississippi there where 3 mounds used as platforms for buildings such as the chiefs house and temples. There was also a reconstructed wattle and daub house with a thatch roof.

[@TheCatull]

what a finisher. This video explains basically all there is to the origin of civilization. Humans must have lived like this for many thousands of years.

[@maryvalentine9090]

What a unique and clever way to house a large group of people.

[@darrens3]

This reminds me a lot of Saxon houses in Britain. Fascinating stuff. Ironically from an anthropological standpoint these Iroquoian longhouses are actually more advanced in many instances. Especially the fires, vents, smokehouse roof-space, etc etc. The bed arrangements remind me of the Dutch cupboard beds done for similar reasons.

[@leeloooooooooo]

Thank you so much for this video! I am fascinated by the ingenuity of people who came before us. ❤

[@MukesBoy]

Fun fact: I live in an area within Louisville Kentucky called Iroquois. We have Iroquois park and high school too. They knocked down the Iroquois projects though. Shawnee Park is the most dangerous park in Louisville but it wasn't always that way.

[@michaelblankenship4250]

Always wondered that about the longhouse and you answered pretty much ever question I could have possibly conceived of I love how you ended it poetic

[@henrymann8122]

Very cool vid. When I was in elementary school, my History assignment was to make a Iroquoian long house and canoe. I got an A+ LOL. Good stuff, Mal.

[@nildabridgeman8104]

Did you keep the Long House & canoe?..

[@aboveallthingslove6349]

👍Thank you for being concise and interpretive in such an efficient manor...no really.

[@lauriebradley8295]

So beautiful is this structure. Form an function in a primary example❤️👍🏼Thank you!

[@eelano1070]

Hello. Thank you for your videos. They’re really fascinating as an outsider to indigenous culture, technology, and craftsmanship!

[@HumanBeanbag]

Wow. Thank you for educating me! I could envision everything you described being inside the longhouse. Beautiful!

[@allanegleston4931]

thanks for showing. I've been on a history kick lately and this shows what the long house looked like . neat to read in a book but to actually see it via your lens is something else . please don't apologize for the shaking .

[@ThunderboltWisdom]

Fascinating video, and I appreciated your no-nonsense presentation style. 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@markeverson5849]

Very nice demonstration beautiful the first time I've seen so much detail explained wow thanks imagine being born into one of those houses growing up learning how to hunt and forage Indian life Village Family Life amazing

[@mrsmucha]

You did a great job on this informative video!

[@fxbootstraps]

Hi I found your channel by accident. I find this so interesting. Thankyou.

[@greenman6141]

Truly fascinating. And so interesting to contrast to the similar sorts of buildings that Scandinavians built...also for very cold snowy winters and hot super sunny summers.

[@Alsayid]

That's pretty cool. I've always heard the term "Iroquoian longhouses," but what does it really mean beyond a vague idea unless you can SEE them, and understand how they were lived in? Good video.

[@uriah-s97]

Well that was absolutely incredible

[@VJIX]

100% of this was new information for me, great video!

[@MalcolmPL]

How is that possible?

[@motagrad2836]

@@MalcolmPL in many areas of the US native culture is ignored or worse, bulldozed and denied. To the best of my knowledge it is more likely to be covered in more depth by private religious schools then by most public school systems. I may be wrong, and the US is a large and diverse group of places, but that is what it seems from what I encountered in contrast to my private Catholic school upbringing. I know I was introduced to some brief info on Ojibwa and Iroquois cultures in grade school, and then many more in college (Cultural Anthropology course) but you still covered it much better than I encountered back then and even in the decades since. Your calling is a great one and highly appreciated ☺️

[@MalcolmPL]

I tend to take a lot of what I know for granted, this video is mostly stuff I learned when I was seven. It seems odd to me that the overwhelming majority of my audience do not live within a fifteen minute drive of a reproduction longhouse.

[@motagrad2836]

@@MalcolmPL because I summered on a dairy farm yet lived the rest of the year in a city hundreds of miles away (mom took care of it grandparents so the farmers could work, with the rest of my father's sibling taking turns for the rest of the year) I realized at an early age that most people have no idea what farm work and life is like. So I tell stories of life on a farm and try not to be callous when people talk about an animal dying as that is a factor of life on a farm is that animals will all die eventually and most become meat for the family. Even now most of my friends never processed their own meat let alone had to sit, field dress, and skin it as their meat always came from the store. Same with grinding grain into meal (which we did for the cattle, but we bought flour in the store), and so on even canning. Such a different life from even 100 years ago when most of the population would have had to do it all themselves. So many people have no idea how to even wash without running water and electricity. It can be hard to explain, but that is why many appreciate your videos so much as it is as far beyond their understanding. We all become greater when we learn of and from each other, even if that knowledge is not really applicable to or own lives. Know that you are valued beyond your own nation and clan ☺️

[@lexexcessum]

I thought I recognized that longhouse! I live nearby and toured that one when I was a kid.

[@daopaleo]

Thank you so much for explaining and showing all this, I learned a lot. It just makes me wonder, what type of dwelling these large multi-storied longhouses evolved from? They could not just spontaneously start building such complex structures.

[@MalcolmPL]

Looking at the houses of various Algonquin peoples gives us some clues, It probably started as a small round bark house like the Ojibwe Wiigwam, then became oval shaped and longer like the houses of the peoples of the Powhatan confederacy, then higher and longer still.

[@cinemaipswich4636]

As an Australian I knew nothing about "American Indians" but teepees and pow wow's. The lodges and long houses are new to me. My first experience was from Johnny Depp's movie "Dead Man". A wonderful movie. Only then did I see the rich heritage of the First People.

[@auntoneyofuntease6704]

There's a movie called Black Robe about eastern Native Americans that might interest you.

[@fcelle]

@@auntoneyofuntease6704 I loved Black Robe

[@brockgrace7470]

Very happy to see such an interesting structure. Enjoyed your video very much. Thank you.

[@BlairAir]

I'm glad I had a wide-screen display to watch this on!

[@timlopes67]

Awesome, would love to see one in person one day. Thanks for the video

[@MalcolmPL]

There’s at least six scattered across Ontario. Probably a couple in New York as well.

[@MightyFineMan]

This was a great overview for something I have been gaining an interest. I am happy the algorithm has brought me to your channel.

[@hxcbmxallday]

This video is amazing. The construction process you described for this village really shows how similar these houses are to modern carpentry. Just like today, they had different groups doing the framing, and the finish/siding. The walls are basically the same as today’s fences, sticking the posts in the ground. They used charred wood where we would use pressure treated, but they planned ahead much better than we do for the eventual decay of their houses. All houses will eventually decay, they let it happen seamlessly, while we don’t.

[@oldmandan3758]

Fascinating video. Well done!!!

[@Kees247]

Great video. All new to me. Sounds like a good and organised way of living and together with nature.

[@dirtywizard77]

First time viewer of the channel. Thoroughly enjoyed the video and subscribed for more. Thanks for your effort

[@charlesbaldo]

I live in Irondequoit NY. This property looks like it could be my backyard. These people lived here. As children we used to always be looking for arrowheads and artifacts.

[@xavierhuc2125]

This is one of the best things I've ever seen on KZbin

[@ourfamilyoutdoors7331]

I was surprised to hear that this longhouse is 20 years old, it has held up really well.

[@felipereinato3127]

This is awelsome!

[@MalcolmPL]

Welcome plus wholesome?

[@HAYAOLEONE]

😆

[@felipereinato3127]

​@@MalcolmPLsorry man, i do not understand much of the english linguage, i am brazilian :|

[@TomSilver_42]

Well thought kind of perma-culture plus verified by generations and generations .. nice and informative video. Thank you!

[@docrx1857]

I really like the part about how the site was replanted for the future generations.

[@TeacherMom80]

Thank you so much for this wonderful video! I am so happy to have found it. I am going to share it with my family. 💖🙏🏼🤗

[@MalcolmPL]

Glad you enjoyed it.

[@jackjones9460]

Any architectural observations? I’ve seen longhouse photos of early Germanic tribes, Marsh Arabs in Iraq and one aerial view of an “undocumented tribe” in the Brazilian rainforest! The other three looked like the builders had used the same plans with 90° angles on the ends with some version of what I think were flying buttresses of reeds, grasses or thin limbs bound together. Seeing the construction once surprised me. Seeing it again in a totally different culture/civilization amazes me! The Iroquois longhouse is more different than how I remember the other three but each group having the same answer for communal living amazes me. Anyway, I’m glad to see an Iroquois longhouse and want to know more. Thank you again.

[@blacknapalm2131]

10:32 *What a beautiful way to live*

[@leoscheibelhut940]

Wow. This is the best one of yours I've watched so far. I've read quite a lot about the lives of the Natives of the Eastern Woodlands but learned so much more about longhouses and villages from your video. Having seen your video comparing stone, antler, and steel axes, I'm very surprised that there fire pits were small and round instead of long like in Viking longhouses. The long Viking firepits allowed the use of the trunks of small trees, which saved much labor and they had iron axes. Any thoughts on the reason for the small round firepits?

[@MalcolmPL]

That video is probably the best one I’m ever going to make. As to the fireplaces, they should be a little longer and more ovular than the ones here. But I think the reason for having a number of smaller fires is traffic. There might be over a hundred people coming and going. These longhouses are also quite a bit longer than a european one, maintaining a two hundred foot fire doesn’t seem practical.

[@martinan22]

The more famous Viking longhouse was not primarily a place of residence. It was a palace, temple, meeting hall combined. Its primary function was to be impressive and majestic. The Viking longhouse had a part of it for the king and his household to live in but the long fire pit is for feasting and representation. The Iroquoian longhouse seem to be primarily a dwelling space. It is reminiscent of Viking houses with the sleeping compartments towards the walls. But normal Viking houses were much smaller than the Iroquoian ones, designed to house only a farmer and his extended household. The Viking longhouse could be as long as 50 meters.

[@susanelainesanner]

Excellent videography. Well organized, just excellent all around. I've now subscribed and look forward to any posting you have time and energy to do. Thank you. One of millions very interesting in Native American history, sociology, archeology et al.

[@jansenart0]

Brilliant. I learned a lot, especially about the maze.

[@roundninja]

This is one of the most fascinating videos I've seen in a long time. Subscription + notifications turned on

[@Wolfthehumanguy]

Best bit of content i’ve seen in a while. Thank you.

[@Barberserk]

What a great channel, I love all your content.

[@LionheartedDan]

Thank you for sharing this introduction!

[@WannabeBushcrafter]

This is such an interesting video! I learned many new things from watching it, thanks!

[@MalcolmPL]

That’s why I’m here.

[@Makofueled]

I've clicked two videos on your channel and both have been about the Haudenosaunee and of great quality. Consider me hooked. Subbed for the excellent work!

[@gregwelgosh]

Very informative, enjoyable and in a cool calm demeanor... i will subscribe, and try to be more respectful to myself and others around me. Thank You!

[@SickOfJunk.]

I love this video...good stuff... Thank you for sharing

[@redtobertshateshandles]

Awesome video. Thanks.

[@dubuyajay9964]

I would love a miniature of this. It's very beautiful.

[@MrLoobu]

Planning ahead for future generations is something we do at all anymore.

[@ximono]

That maze entrance is pretty ingenious

[@KillerCammy85]

This was so informative, thank you. Im Mohawk but I didnt grow up with my family 😢 Ive been learning as much as I can since we confirmed who my birth dad is.

[@KillerCammy85]

Seeing the inside of the longhouse almost made me cry. I can imagine my ancestors laughing and talking together surrounded by loved ones. ❤

[@stefanschleps8758]

Excellent! I appreciate the time you took to research and produce this video. Very interesting. Time to binge on other videos of yours. Thank you. A new sub. Peace