IROQUOIS LONGHOUSE

For some reason, third and fifth grades at Seneca Elementary seem to be project years. When Heath was in the third grade, it seemed we were doing some sort of project every time we turned around. Probably the most fun and by far the most hilarious that year was the potato. The kids were to pick someone from history in the present or past, and dress the potato as that person. Heath and I decided to pick Princess Diana as she is in our family lineage. Oh boy, would she have been insulted!

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, we started seeing the Indian house projects start popping up on tables along the school's hallways on display. I was feeling pretty good. Heath's class wasn't participating.... yet. I was so, so relieved. Then one day last week when picking up the boys, in a flat three seconds it all ended. There was this assignment paper waving in front of my eyes and a voice saying words like "due the 25th" and "we're doing the longhouse" and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Today when I picked up the boys, I was feeling pretty good. Heath and I would finish up the final touches this evening on the Iroquois Longhouse and tomorrow he could turn it in. And just as we turned off the county road, heading home, Aaron says, "I think we're going to do a project next week." Groan.

IROQUOIS LONGHOUSE PROJECT
Objective: Build a longhouse - 90% from natural materials

The Iroquois Indians lived in long buildings that housed from 40 to 60 people - all family. To build their houses, they put wooden poles into the ground and tied tree bark to these poles. Inside the house there was a pathway that ran the length of the house where they cooked their meals over fire pits. In the ceiling they left a hole for the smoke to exit.

The project was to build the house as natural as possible onto a sturdy base and then the student could add props to make it more realistic. Everything Heath used for his project was 100% natural - nothing on this project is fake excluding the paint, glue and the screws that attach the back and side drops to the base. The first thing we did was to find a sturdy base. I found a door from an old bar we had taken out of the house during a remodel - it was perfect for us. Since the house was the main part of the project, we had to decide what type of stick to use as the supporting structure. Dale went down to the spring and got some cane for the wooden poles. We drilled holes into the base so that the structure would be sturdier. After Heath got all of these poles into place then it was time to attach the tree bark. We took small pieces of bark in which I hot glued them for Heath to attach them. No tying bark for us! For the roof, we sort of cheated. Dale had found a nice solid piece of tree bark that we could just lay over the top. I drew out a back and side drop for the base while Dale cut it out so that Heath could paint the mountains, sun and trees/bushes.


The "skin" that is tied to the cane poles is from an old pair of leather gloves. All the rocks used along the creek and for the fire pit and oven were gathered from the boys' backyard fort play area. These rocks are the waste from American Tripoli in Seneca, Missouri. To read more about this natural rock, visit the company's website www.americantripoli.com.

American Tripoli, Inc. was established in 1891 in Seneca Missouri following the discovery of ‘Seneca Standard’ Tripoli twenty-three years earlier in the extreme southwest corner of Missouri. The Tripoli name is derived from Tripoli, North Africa, where a similar ore body was first discovered. American Tripoli remains one of the oldest mine operations in the United States today.

Nowhere else in the world is there a material that equates to the quality and effectiveness of Seneca Standard Tripoli. This is due to the high quality of the ore deposit and the company’s commitment to producing a superior Tripoli product hence, the Seneca Standard.

The canoe is from a piece of wood that Dale cut and carved to some extent to resemble a canoe. The stick on the canoe is a piece of maize stock.

The spear is a twig with a super small rock at the point that came from New Mexico. The rock that the spear is lying on is petrified wood and is also from New Mexico and likewise the petrified wood that has the 2 bowls of fruit sitting on top.

The frame over the outdoor oven is also made of cane and is tied with strips of leather. The so-called "strips of meat or leather or whatever" hanging down is again from that same leather glove.

The stumps are just super small branches cut down to look like stumps while the beaver dam is built out of fern stems stripped of their leaves.

All of the wooden bowls sitting around are acorn hulls or caps and the "fruit" inside them is either dogwood tree berries or maize grains. The so-called apples on the ground are also dogwood tree berries.


The trees are small twigs off of pine and dogwood trees.

The ground is covered with sand and crumbled up sycamore leaves which were obtained from the neighbor's yard as Dale does not believe in letting leaves stay too long on ours! Hopefully, they didn't see him doing this... late at night and stealing leaves! Actually, they would be amused and the next time I see them I will have to tell them about the "leaf thief." The sand is actually from the Cimarron River in Yale, Oklahoma, where Dale grew up.

The green "medicinal herbs" are from a Eastern Red Cedar tree and tied with a strip of leather. The dried bundles tied with leather strips are dead pine needles.

And, finally, there is a small crop of maize planted to the right of the longhouse which represents the corn that was so important in their diet.