and the Andastes of the lower Susquehanna, were of the
same linguistic stock as the Iroquois who dwelt south of
Lake Ontario. Peoples speaking the Huron-Iroquois tongue
thus occupied the central part of the eastern half of
North America, while all around them, north, south, east,
and west, roamed the tribes speaking dialects of the
Algonquin.

Most of the Huron [Footnote: The name Huron is of uncertain
origin. The word HURON was used in France as early as
1358 to describe the uncouth peasants who revolted against
the nobility. But according to Father Charles Lalemant,
a French sailor, on first beholding some Hurons at
Tadoussac in 1600, was astonished at their fantastic way
of dressing their hair--in stiff ridges with shaved
furrows between--and exclaimed 'Quelles hures!'--what
boar-heads! In their own language they were known as
Ouendats (dwellers on a peninsula), a name still extant
in the corrupted form Wyandots.] towns were encircled by
log palisades. The houses were of various sizes and some
of them were more than two hundred feet long. They were
built in the crudest fashion. Two rows of sturdy saplings
were stuck in the ground about twenty-five feet apart,
then bent to meet so as to form an arch, and covered with
bark. An open strip was left in the roof for the escape
of smoke and for light. Each house sheltered from six to
a dozen families, according to the number of fires. Two
families shared each fire, and around the fire in winter
clustered children, dogs, youths, gaily decorated maidens,
jabbering squaws, and toothless, smoke-blinded old men.