The totemic system prevailed among the Algonkin tribes, with descent in the female line; but we do not find among them the same communal life as among the Iroquois. Only rarely do we encounter the “long house,” occupied by a number of kindred families. Among the Lenâpés, for example, this was entirely unknown, each married couple having its own residence. The gens was governed by a chief, who was in some cases selected by the heads of the other gentes. The tribe had as permanent ruler a “peace chief,” selected from a particular gens, also by the heads of the other gentes. His authority was not absolute, and, as usual, did not extend to any matter concerning the particular interests of any one gens. When war broke out, the peace chief had no concern in it, the campaign being placed in charge of a “war chief,” who had acquired a right to the position by his prominent prowess and skill. While the Mohegans built large communal houses, the Lenâpés and most of the eastern Algonkins constructed small wattled huts with rounded tops, thatched with the leaves of the Indian corn or with sweet flags. These were built in groups and surrounded with palisades of stakes driven into the ground. In summer, light brush tents took the place of these. Agriculture was by no means neglected. The early explorers frequently refer to large fields of maize, squash and tobacco under cultivation by the natives. The manufacture of pottery was widespread, although it was heavy and coarse. Mats woven of bark and rushes, deer skins dressed with skill, feather garments, and utensils of wood and stone, are mentioned by the early voyagers. Copper was dug from veins in New Jersey and elsewhere and hammered into ornaments, arrowheads, knives and chisels. It was, however, treated as a stone, and the process of smelting it was unknown. The arrow and spear heads were preferably of quartz, jasper and chert, while the stone axes were of diorite, hard sandstone, and similar tough and close-grained material.[91] An extensive commerce in these and similar articles was carried on with very distant points. The red pipe-stone was brought to the Atlantic coast from the Coteau des Prairies, and even the black slate highly ornamented pipes of the Haidah on Vancouver Island have been exhumed from graves of Lenâpé Indians.