Each hut might be inhabited by twenty-four families, who would maintain twelve fires.

The smoke, having no proper means of egress except at either end of the long dwelling, and through the chinks of the roof, so injured their eyes during the winter season that many people lost their sight as they grew old.
[Footnote 30: They were almost completely exterminated by the Iroquois confederacy between thirty and forty years after Champlain's visit.] "Their life", writes Champlain, "is a miserable one in comparison with our own, but they are happy amongst themselves, not having experienced anything better, nor imagining that anything more excellent could be found." These Amerindians ordinarily ate two meals a day, and although Champlain and his men fasted all through Lent, "in order to influence them by our example", that was one of the practices they did _not_ copy from the French.
The Hurons of this period painted their faces black and red, mixing the colours with oil made from sunflower seed, or with bears' fat.

The hair was carefully combed and oiled, and sometimes dyed a reddish colour; it might be worn long or short, or only on one side of the head.

The women usually dressed theirs in one long plait.

Sometimes it was done up into a knot at the back of the head, bound with eelskin.
The men were usually dressed in deerskin breeches, with gaiters of soft leather.