Welcome to Erichoy History and Legends.

Episode 2, the First American Constitution. On this episode, Andrew and I are going to be talking about the Constitution of the

Aroquois and also how their government worked.

And I think that the only way that we can truly understand the symbology behind their

government is if we take a step back and first talk about

how they lived and what their houses were like. Yes, so the name Haudinashone literally means

they are making a long house or people of the long house. Okay, now I'm confused because I learned in school that the Native Americans,

they lived in teepees. What is this? You were wrong. Well, some plains people did live in

little teepees or tents, but we're talking about eastern Native Americans. And in the northeast

woods, they lived in longhouses houses wood was plentiful and so

their houses were made out of wood this wasn't like a house like you and I have this was a pretty

big house we're talking like some of them could be a hundred feet long some of them were as long

as a football field yikes they were huge and very long and narrow you're, what does that have to do with their system of government? Well, you've got to think of it, they used their house as a symbol for their whole nation. So they viewed their whole five nations together as a long house. And we're going to explain how that meant. So a long house, like I said, is really long. It's a barked, thatched building. And then it has two big doors on each end. That was the only way in,

only way out. They had bunks going down the side where they could use for sleeping and storage.

And then in the middle, they had fires where they could cook and keep warm. And how, Caleb, does that relate to how their nation was set up allegorically? Well, one thing to think about it, how big is a hundred foot or a hundred yard long house?

That's a huge house to only have two doors.

But, you know, the reason for it was actually because it was a security thing.

It was a lot easier to defend your home if you only had two entrances. So you'll see in their

confederation, for example, the Seneca nation was the furthest to the west. Therefore, they were known

as the keepers of the western door. So symbolically, that would be like you living on the west-facing

door of the longhouse, and it was your responsibility to guard that door.

Yeah, and make sure no enemies came through there.

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