DCHP-1 Online

longhouse

• 1 † n. among the Indians of the Five Nations (Iroquois) and the Hurons, a communal dwelling and council house about 20 feet wide and varying in length, the centre of political and religious life.

  • 1883  (1895)  He will therefore be unable to accompany me to the Onandaga "Long-House," where the council is to be held.
  • 1913  . . . he would accompany his parents to the "Longhouse" (which was their church), and take his little part in the religious festivities.
  • 1963  Before that, snowshoe-making with deerhide and white ash was common around the longhouses of the old homeland of Wendake--which later inhabitants now call Huronia--in the Georgian Bay region of Ontario.

• 2 n. among Coast Indians, a long rectangular communal dwelling, built of cedar, housing several families, and used at times for ceremonial affairs. [See picture at plank house.]

  See also: plank house  

  • 1958  Yet Marpole was a flourishing village of cedar longhouses built by a food-gathering neolithic people around the time of the Roman conquest of Britain.
  • 1959  The longhouse used for tribal celebrations was erected with massive cedar timbers. The longest known in history was 1,000 feet long. It was built by the grandfather of Chief Dominic Charlie of the Squamish tribe on the Capilano reserve in North Vancouver.
  • 1964  I met Mungo Martin, the chief, and he took me into the longhouse where they were celebrating the end of the salmon catch.