What is a wigwam? This is a typical structure of twigs and birch bark used by Native Americans, including Native American tribes of the Northeast cultural group, as a home or shelter.
What is a wigwam?
The concept itself comes from a word used by the Abenaki tribe and means home. It was a form of shelter used by various Indian tribes, especially those who lived in the northeast forest. What is a wigwam? This is a house that was usually a domed building.
It reached, as a rule, 2.5-3 meters in height and about 12 meters in diameter. First, a wooden frame was made, which was then covered with birch bark and other available materials, such as animal skins. The joints of the structure were firmly fastened with ropes. From the late 1700s, cloth was sometimes used to cover wigwams.
Native American Homes
What is a wigwam? The word was once used to describe all Native American homes regardless of structure, location, orcultural group. In fact, the term is used to describe the semi-permanent types of shelter used by the Northeast Woodland cultural group. The word Wetu is translated as "home" in the Wampanoag tribe. The term "birch house" is also used as an alternative name for a wigwam. The word wikip is used to describe these primitive dwellings, but is common among tribes in the southwestern United States.
What is the difference between a wigwam and a tipi?
The difference between a wigwam and a teepee is that the wigwam was used by the tribes of the northeastern forest culture group, while the teepee was used by the nomadic tribes of the Great Plains. The first was a semi-permanent design, the second was completely portable. The forest tribes had access to forests and used birch bark as coverings for their shelters.
The tribes of the Great Plains hunted buffalo and used buffalo skins as coverings for their dwellings. The wigwam took longer to build, while the teepees were easy and quick to build. Some were domed, while others were shaped like pyramid tents.
Who lived in the wigwam?
Teepe was commonly used as a dwelling by Native American Indian tribes (Wampanoag, Shawnee, Abenaki, Sauk, Fox, Pequot, Narragansett, Kickapoo, Ojibwe, and Otoe) who lived around the Great Lakes and East Coast and had access to birch bark from forests ontheir territories. These designs were convenient for the tribes that were in one place for several months. The Algonquian tribes of the Northeast Indians who used wigwams lived in the villages during the growing season, growing corn, squash, squash, beans and tobacco.
During the hunting season, small family groups moved to hunting camps. When the family moved to a new place, the Indian wigwam was dismantled in such a way that the frame of the rods remained intact, and the Indians took all the covering with them. Upon returning, the house was again covered with the necessary materials. And if the frame was no longer available, it was erected again.
Indian lifestyle
Each tribe chooses the type of housing they live in according to their lifestyle, climate, environment and natural resources that are available to them. A wigwam (a photo of similar structures is in the article) was chosen as the most suitable type of housing and house style, as it corresponded to the lifestyle of the tribes inhabiting the forest areas.
Can I build a wigwam myself?
How to make a wigwam? In fact, it is not so difficult, you will need a minimum of equipment. The main materials used to create an authentic wigwam are flexible tree branches or seedlings. To begin with, a circle is drawn on the ground, which is about 12 meters in diameter. Then 16 are made evenly around the circumferenceholes to a depth of about 20-30 cm. Trunks bent into an impromptu arch are firmly fixed in the holes, thus forming a dome-shaped wigwam.
Horizontal hoops are attached to the rest of the frame with hard fibers of tree bark. Then the whole structure is covered with sheets of birch bark, forming a roof and walls. Sometimes, for additional protection of the dwelling, a layer of straw or dried grass is placed on the birch bark. Woven mats, skins, canvases and blankets were also used to cover the wigwam, if these things were available to the owners. They were held in place with ropes. The space left for the doorway is an inlet valve that allows people to enter the wigwam. And the smoke hole made from above serves as a kind of chimney to bring smoke from the fire out and circulate air.
The size of the wigwams was very different, in the largest buildings up to 30 tribesmen could live at the same time. Currently, these structures are often used as a venue for traditional ceremonies. Analogues of wigwams can be found among some African peoples, Chukchi, Evenki and Soyts.
