Abstract

I will present evidence for enduring connections between the spatial disposition of routine domestic practices, and the constitution of personhood, power, and community in a North American ‘Neolithic’ society. The spatial order of Iroquoian longhouse life was, I suggest, integral to the process of defining and naturalizing dualistic or ‘conjoint’ ideals of personhood and power in a wider context of sedentarization and village development. Specifically, the peculiar multivalent quality of longhouse space seems to have been productively engaged in mediating tensions between part and whole, ego and collective, that lay at the heart of Northern Iroquoian social reproduction.