Abstract

The prehistoric Iroquoian longhouse is explored from the perspective of sociological performance. It is argued that the everyday practices of domestic life constituted an ongoing discourse in which tensions between social atoms and wholes were negotiated. The habitual behaviours that occurred within the longhouse exhibit an enduring concern for balance and symmetry between spaces identified with autonomous but allied social units. Moreover, the special emphasis on these principals, exemplified by post-cluster features associated with the house medial line, suggests that this liminal space was the focus of heightened ritualization in the 14th and 15th centuries, perhaps in response to scalar stress.