Name: ____________________________________ Class: ___________ Date: ____________________

Wigwam:

A wigwam was a round building with a round top. It was made from tree logs, covered again with bark. Some were additionally covered with mats or hide. Some were quite large - about 6 feet long. There were huge rush mats in front of the fire, and brightly dyed mats on the walls. The women made the wigwam as colorful as they could. Extended families - kids, parents, and grandparents - all lived together in one wigwam.

A wigwam is not a tipi. A tipi is totally portable. It is made with long poles covered with hides. Some wigwams were fixed shelters. Some were a mix of permanent and portable.

The Ojibwa and the Lenape made their wigwams by covering a wood frame with hide and then covering the hide with bark. When an Ojibwa family moved to a new location, the hide was rolled up and taken with them. The frame stayed. When they returned the following year, or several years later, they simply unrolled the covering they always carried, and placed it on the frame. If a frame was not available, they would make a new one.

Today, Native Americans live in houses just like yours and mine. But in olden times, many parts of the country had its own distinctive style of home.

Below is a description of Chiricahua wickiups recorded by anthropologist Morris Opler:

“The home in which the family lives is made by the men and is ordinarily a circular, dome-shaped brush dwelling, with the floor at ground level. It is eight feet high at the center and approximately seven feet in diameter. To build it, long fresh poles of oak or willow are driven into the ground or placed in holes made with a digging stick. These poles, which form the framework, are arranged at one-foot intervals and are bound together at the top with yucca-leaf strands. Over them a thatching of bundles of big bluestem grass or bear grass is tied, shingle style, with yucca strings. A smoke hole opens above a central fireplace. A hide, suspended at the entrance, is fixed on a cross-beam so that it may be swung forward or backward. The doorway may face in any direction. For waterproofing, pieces of hide are thrown over the outer hatching, and in rainy weather, if a fire is not needed, even the smoke hole is covered. In warm, dry weather much of the outer roofing is stripped off. It takes approximately three days to erect a sturdy dwelling of this type. These houses are "warm and comfortable even though there is a big snow." The interior is lined with brush and grass beds over which robes are spread....”

Inupiat Igloo:

The early people who lived in central Canada are credited with the invention of igloos. Their homes were well constructed. They fit blocks tightly together. Then, using lamps, they applied heat to the walls of their home, both inside and out. The ice melted a little, and quickly refroze. This sealed the blocks into one sheet of ice, and made their homes nearly air tight.

One oil lamp could heat a home. Homes had windows made of clear sheets of ice. They had doors of ice that could be opened and closed.

During construction, they built in an ice shelf around the entire inside wall. They used the shelf to spread out bedding and for a place to sit. The ice shelves stayed frozen because one side of the shelf was part of the outside wall. The people stayed warm while sleeping on the shelves because they were tucked inside fur sleeping bags.

The snow used to build an igloo must have enough structural strength to be cut and stacked appropriately. The best snow to use for this purpose is snow which has been blown by wind, which can serve to compact and interlock the ice crystals. The hole left in the snow where the blocks are cut is usually used as the lower half of the shelter. Sometimes, a short tunnel is constructed at the entrance to reduce wind and heat loss when the door is opened. Snow's effective insulating properties enable the inside of the igloo to remain relatively warm. In some cases, a single block of clear ice is inserted to allow light into the igloo. Animal skins were used as door flaps to keep warm air in. Igloos used as winter shelters had beds made of ice and caribou furs. These 'ice beds' are unique to the region and Inuit culture.

Architecturally, the igloo is unique in that it is a dome that can be raised out of independent blocks leaning on each other and polished to fit without an additional supporting structure during construction. An igloo that is built correctly will support the weight of a person standing on the roof. In the traditional Inuit igloo, the heat from the kudlik (qulliq, stone lamp) causes the interior to melt slightly. This melting and refreezing builds up a layer of ice that contributes to the strength of the igloo.

Ogala Lakota Tipi

No matter how you spell it, the tipi remains a wonderful invention.

A tepee (tipi, teepee) is a Plains Indian home. It is made of buffalo hide fastened around very long wooden poles, designed in a cone shape. Tepees were warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Some were quite large. They could hold 30 or 40 people comfortably.

Tepee Poles: The 15-foot poles were sometimes hard to find. Some people became really good at making sturdy poles. They used them for trade. A typical trade would be one horse for five poles.

The Rising Sun: A tepee used a hide flap as a doorway. Weather permitting, the entrance faced east, towards the rising sun.

If the weather was miserable or a storm was brewing, the people positioned the flap opening in whatever way would best serve the comfort of the occupants.

Sometimes, the people arranged their tepees in a circle, with all the opening flaps facing the center open space created by the circle of tepees. The younger kids could play in this open space, under the watchful eyes of their mothers.

Women were in charge of the teepees: It was up to the women where to place a tepee. The tepee was their castle, and they were in charge of anything to do with it, including building it, erecting it, breaking it down for transports.

She was in charge of behavior inside the tepee, as well. If she said, "Go to sleep," everyone had to go to sleep or leave the tepee. She was in charge inside the tepee. It was her tepee.

Painted Skins: Men were in charge of the outside of the tepee. It was up to them to bring back the skins necessary to cover the poles. It was up to them to either bring back horses or hides to trade for poles, or to make the poles themselves. The men often painted the outside of the tepee they called home. The painting was often symbolic of their achievements. Each tribe had their own style.

Inside the Tepee: There was a small fire in the center for cooking and for warmth when needed. Tepees had an open space at the top, a little off center, to let the smoke out. When it rained or snowed, the men were sent outside to wrap an extra piece of hide around the top of the tepee. The men always left a little room for the smoke to get out. The Plains people used little furniture. They slept on buffalo skins on the floor of their homes.

Tepee Etiquette: If the entrance flap was open, it was an invitation to enter. If the flap was closed, you needed to announce yourself and wait for an invitation to enter a tepee, even if you lived there. A guest always sat to the left of the head of the family, who always sat the farthest from the door flap. These were rules that everyone knew and everyone followed.

Taos Pueblo

One of the main characteristics of the Pueblo Indians is the way they build their houses. While most Native Americans lived in tepees or wigwams, Pueblo Indians built actual houses out of wood, adobe, stone, and dirt, with a wooden roof covered with mud plaster. The houses, which were built up to five stories high, were called "pueblos" (the Spanish word for "town") and were very useful for hot weather, because they kept the inside of the house cool. The doors were always at the top of the house, so that if an enemy attacked, the Pueblo Indians could pull up the ladder that led to their door. Each band of Pueblo Indians would live inside a small group of houses, and each family got one room. On the side of the "town", there were mud-brick ovens called "hornos", where women baked food.

The Pueblo were cliff dwellers. They built homes of adobe brick on cliffs and on mesas in the southwest.

Homes were stacked one on top of the other, like an apartment complex. Sometimes they were stacked four high. Those who had homes on the ground floor could simply walk up to their door. Others had to climb ladders to reach their front door.

Each floor of homes had a walkway that ran in front of many doorways. Once you reached the next level up, if that was your floor, you used the walkway to reach your front door. If you needed to go higher, you found a ladder and climbed to the next level.

The Pueblos' homes were made up of adobe, stone, and wooden poles. Adobe was a thick mud that was sun-dried into bricks. Pueblos could shelter hundreds of families. An example of one of the many homes is the Pueblo Bonito in New Mexico Chaco Canyon. The Pueblo Bonito was a giant home that housed 1,000 people. In the Pueblo Bonito, it had about 800 rooms. However, to access the upper rooms (since it was multi-storied) was to climb a step ladder. The step ladders applied to all Pueblo homes because they had no hallways or stairs.

Seminole Chickee

Seminole families each had their own home. Their home was called a chickee.

Chickees were platform houses, made of logs. The bottom floor was about 3 feet off the ground for protection from flooding and animals. The roof was slanted.

Certain times of the year, people hung canvas curtains (walls) to keep out the rain and cold weather. When walls were not needed, the Seminole rolled up their canvas curtains and hung them from the rafters to keep them safe and dry.

They hung many things from the rafters of their homes - cooking utensils, a baby swing, perhaps a wheel. You had to keep things off the wet ground if you wanted to keep them safe.

Sometimes, the women worked in the chickee during the day. The baby's swing, which was securely fastened to the rafters of the chickee, had a piece of cloth tied to it that hung down. While working at something else, the women would tug the piece of hanging cloth to gently rock the baby.

Seminole families slept in their chickee at night. Their beds of hides or blankets were called "comfortables". Comfortables were rolled up and hung from the rafters during the day. They had very little other furniture, perhaps a chair, a table, and a few colorful baskets.

Navajo Hogan

A Navajo home was called a hogan.

Hogans were made of wooden poles covered with tree bark and mud. They were permanent structures. They were also very dark and gloomy. They had no windows, and only a small hole in the ceiling to let out smoke. The door of a hogan always faced east to welcome the rising sun.

Hogans were usually one room affairs. People sheltered in the hogan at night. The only furniture in a hogan was bedding. Bedding was usually a sheepskin on the floor.

Each Navajo family had two hogans - one in the desert and one in the mountains.

Traditional structured hogans are also considered pioneers of energy efficient homes. Using packed mud against the entire wood structure, the home was kept cool by natural air ventilation and water sprinkled on the dirt ground inside. During the winter, the fireplace kept the inside warm for a long period of time and well into the night. This concept is called thermal mass.

The southwest area of the county, especially the areas in which the Navajo lived, were subject to flash floods. In case of any disaster, having two homes allowed them to move quickly. They also moved seasonally. And they moved if they needed fresh grazing land, or if their food and water supply dried up.

The Navajo believed in being prepared. You can see this in their homes.