Storing Food:
Dried Fish: Much of the catch would be dried and then stored. If the store of food was getting low, the men would go out at night with torches. The light attracted fish into their nets. Everyone in the village got busy drying and storing dried fish.
Dried fish was not the only food that was stored.
Rafter Storage Racks: They built storage racks inside that hung from the rafters. Corn was braided, along with squash, and hung from the ceiling. Other foods were stored on the storage racks.
The racks worked really well. Down the center of the longhouse were the family fires, one after another. Each family had a space inside the longhouse. And each family had a fire or shared a fire with the people across from them. There were smoke holes in the roof of the longhouse. So, the smoke and heat from the fires went up, and dried and smoked meat, fish, and other stored food, on the way out.
Buried Clay Pots: They also stored dried food in clay pots. The pots were lined with bark, which kept the mice out. Pots were filled with dried corn, meat, and vegetables. The pots were buried in bark lined storage pits inside or near the longhouse.
