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.
