Longhouses were built by native peoples in various parts of North America, sometimes reaching over 100 meters long but still around 5 to 7 meters wide. The construction method was also different: the dominant theory is walls were made of sharpened and fire-hardened poles (up to 1,000 saplings for a 50 meter house) driven into the ground with their tops bent over and tied to the opposite wall's poles. Strips of bark were then woven horizontally through the lines of poles to form more or less weatherproof walls with doors usually in one end of the house, although doors also were built into sides of especially long longhouses.

Iroquois longhouse

---

The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee or People of the Longhouses) who lived in New York and Ontario built and lived in longhouses (gononh'sees). Longer than they were wide, these longhouses had openings at both ends that served as doors and were covered with animal skins during the winter to keep out the cold. On average a typical longhouse was about 80 feet long by 18 feet wide by 18 feet high and were meant to house up to twenty or more families at once. Poles were set in the ground and supported by horizontal poles along the walls. The roof is made by bending a series of poles, resulting in an arc-shaped roof. The frame is covered by bark that's sewn in place and layered as shingles, and reinforced by light poles.

Missionaries who visited these longhouses often wrote about how dark the interior of the dwellings were because there were no windows in them; only the two doors. The ceiling had holes to allow the firepit smoke to escape but the light that came through those was minimal. Each family occupied booths on both sides of the central hallway. The booths had a wood platform on ground and platform for sleeping. Fires are lit in the central hallway, and shared among the families.

West Coast longhouse

---

As there are more forest in Pacific west coast, these long house are built with log frame and covered with planks in additional to bark cover. The length of these long house is usually 60 feet long. Usually there is one doorway that faces the coastline. Each long house contain certain number of boothes along both side of the central hallway, and is separated by wooden containers (akin to modern drawers). Each booth also have its own individual fire. Usually, a family, along with its extended families, occupied one long house, and cooperate in obtaining food and building long wood boats. The roof is slanted, and pitched in various degrees depend upon the rain fall. They are very elaborately decorated with numerous drawings of faces, ravens, bears, whales, and etc. A totem pole is always accompanied with long house, and sometimes even used as part of the entrance way.

External links

---

• Ganondagan State Historic Site at Victor, New York - authentic replica of Iroquois longhouse

Iroquois | Traditional Native American dwellings

Langhaus (Wohngebäude)#Langhäuser der Indianer im Nordosten Nordamerikas