The houses of these early people of Genesee county were, we may assume, the framed buildings of large poles or small logs, say eighteen or twenty feet wide and slightly longer. The frames were bound together by strips of rawhide, and when completed, covered with bark of elm or birch, so joined together as to be impervious to rain, snow or wind. The four sides of the house faced the cardinal points of the compass, and the doors were toward the east and the west. The orientation of the homes was significant. Toward the four points of the compass, the Indian turned reverently when he offered his prayers, and from each point he invoked the blessing of his Maker.

In the middle of the house was a fireplace, conveniently located on the ground in the center of the room, and a hole in the roof over the fire gave an outlet for the smoke, which from an Indian fire made of dry wood of the approved kind was not so thick or offensive as the smoke from the white man's fire; besides. Was not the smoke the medium of communication with the Master of Life and did it not in its forms give to the red man visions of the unseen things of the mystery world. Along the sides of the room was platforms for seats by day, for beds by night. These were covered with skins, and beneath were receptacles for the edible things gathered from the woods or garnered from the fields--the nuts, the roots, the corn, the beans and the squashes. The husk bags, hung from rafters, held the maple sugar or the meal ground from the parched corn. Here the bag of skins in which the housewife kept her needles of bone and thread of sinews. Here were the bowls of wood and the ladles of horn or wood, and there the gourd or drinking cup, the heavy club, the big stone with a rawhide thing which was to break the ice in winter. Here were the fish hooks made of bone, and the spear, with its bone point. Here the deer horn, made into a spade to dig around the soil where the "three sisters" grew.

The fire was kept alive by banking the coals in ashes throughout the winter, for fire-making was laborious; besides, fire was sacred, and the making of the fire in a new home, and the making of a new fire in an old home each year, was a matter of ceremony sanctioned by ancient tires and sanctified by ancient custom.

In winter, the period of relaxation, the men passed their time largely in inactivity. The women made or mended he clothing for the family. They wove the husk bottle for use and husk masks for merry-making; the hush nose to wear as a rebuke to the gossip or mischief-maker. They all, men, women and children, rollicked and romped with each other and played various games. The men made bows, spears, arrows and shaped the stone by chipping off the flakes of chert until the spear point or arrow was achieved. They polished the stone for a chisel to cut away the charred wood where the coals were piled onto make the wooden bowl, or the trough for the sap of the maple. This work was the school for manual training of the young, who diligently helped the older folk. In the evening there gathered around the middle fire, the men and women, the youth and the children, and there some old man whose life had been given to keep alive the unwritten history of the people, some "Keeper-of-the-faith," perhaps., stated the things of the olden days, as their father had told them, of the deeds of their heroes, of the migration of the tribe, of their glory in war and above all, of their duty to give thanks, "to our mother, the earth, which sustains us, to the rivers and streams, which supply us with water, to all herbs, which furnish us medicine for the cure of our diseases, to the corn, and to her sisters, the beans and squashes, which give us life; to the bushes and trees which provide us with fruits; to the wind, moving the air, has banished diseases; to the moon and stars which have given to us their lights when the sun was gone; to our grandfather he-no, who has protected his grandchildren from witches and reptiles, and has given us the rain; to the sun, who has looked upon the earth with a beneficent eye, and lastly we return thanks to the Master of Life, Rawennyo, in whom is embodied all goodness, and who directs all things for the good of his children."

And so the children and the young men and girls of the Hurons of Genesee county were taught reverence for the Creator, and obedience to their elders, and respect for the aged, who because of their long life knew all that the younger people knew and much besides; and if the speaker hesitated, the your people said, "I listen:" and if any on by reason of drowsiness or inattention failed to so respond, he was disgraced, so attention to the words of the wise was also taught to the youth of that age.

In early February, the month of the new year when the pleiades, which the Indians called "the Guides," were directly over head when the stars came out at nightfall, came the new year, for the Creator of the world made the world with these stars directly over it. Then the people gathered together to give thanks for the preservation of their lives; smoke was sent up from the sacred tobacco to bear the messages of reverence and supplication, and a white dog, pure in color and without blemish, was killed, for so their fathers had done before them.

In March, the month of the maple sap, they gathered again, and again rendered thanks for the earth, and the medical plants, and the "three sisters," and the winds, and the trees, and the Master of life; but especially did they give thanks to Rawennyo, who gave them the maple trees, and to the tree itself, for its sweet water from which to make the maple sugar.

Again in May, the planting month, they gathered to recognize the aid of the Creator in their labor of planting the seeds, and to ask an abundant harvest. And when the strawberry, the berry-that-grows-on-the-hillside, ripened, this too was an evidence of the goodness of Him-who-made-up, and this, too, called for recognition by a gathering together of the people, followed by solemn and devout worship according to the customs and ritual of their fathers.

But all the religious festivals of these Huron-Iroquois, the greatest was the green-corn festival, that occurred in the fall when the roasting ears were fit. With many of the Indians, this month was called the "Month of roasting ears." The corn was the most important food product of the Indians. The ease of its production, and the variety of forms in which it was used made it the principal food of the red men, although its two sisters, the bean and the squash, came next and were almost universally referred to together as the three sisters. The feat in honor of this gift of Creator was elaborate in its ceremonies; it covered four days, each of which was devoted to some particular religious service or social enjoyment.

They had an exaggerated idea of personal liberty. The death penalty was inflicted for crime. But imprisonment, never--they had no jails. In war an honorable captivity was recognized and hostages given, but captivity as a punishment for crime was not sanctioned. Enslavement of an enemy was just, but the distinction between master and slave was not broad, as among civilized persons.

Those people had a rude but efficient system of agriculture. In summer the women went out into the woods and, if new fields were to be chosen for their planting the next year built a fire about the trees in order to kill them and let in the sun. the next spring, at proper intervals between the trees so killed, they built small fires of the dead branches of these trees, which killed the vegetation, and the ashes formed a fertilizer. On the sites of these fires, a little later in the planting month, after digging up the soil with a sharpened stick or deer's horn, the women planted the three sisters--corn, beans and squash--all in one hill. The corn growing up made a pole for the beans to grow upon; the squash sent its vines out over the adjacent ground. In this way, with little tillage, probably as great results in the way of food supplies were obtained as would seen possible from any other method conceivable. No fences were required, as they had no domestic animal to stray or trespass. The crows were watched, and if the witches came, appeal was made to the Ga-go-sa, or cult of the false face, to exorcise them. These same medicine men ministered to the sick, especially when the disease was accompanied by delirium; for this symptom suggested the seeing of the flying faces in the sky, and the Ga-go-sa of the red face was in all the traditions of the Huron a symbol of blessings to come. We may believe that the visible presence of these florid faces at the bedside of the delirious patient may have diverted his visions from the black and distorted features of the vicious faces of his delirium and soothed his spirits.