Types of dwellings. Wigwam - a traditional dwelling of the North American Indians. What do the Indians live in?

Shishmarev Ilya

The work examines various types of dwellings of Indians living in North America.

Download:

Preview:

MUNICIPAL STATE

GENERAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

"SECONDARY EDUCATIONAL SCHOOL No. 1" p. GRACHEVKA

DIRECTION: LINGUISTICS (ENGLISH LANGUAGE)

SUBJECT: "NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN SETTLEMENTS"

Completed by: Shishmarev Ilya

student of grade 6 "B"

Scientific adviser: Tulchina E. S.

English teacher

Grachevka, 2013

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………3

1. Indian settlements………………………………………………………..5
2. House types North American Indians…………………………………..6

1. Home of the Hohoki and Anasazi Tribes……………………………………………………6
2. Navajo houses………………………………………………………..6
3. Hogans of the Pawnee and Mandan tribes……………………………………………………………6
4. Irakez and their home……………………………………………………….7
5. Wigwams…………………………………………………………………………………7
6. Vikapas - a typical dwelling of the Appalachian tribe…………………………….8
7. The culture of building long buildings……………………………….8
8. Totem pillars……………………………………………………………..8
9. Interior decoration………………………………………………………9

1. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………10
2. List of used literature……………………………………………………11
3. Application

Introduction

Indians are the indigenous people, the aborigines of America. Their life story is tragic. Very often, Indians are associated with scary films about cowboys and Indians, where the latter act as villains and scoundrels. In fact, the history of the American Indians is the history of the most brutal, ruthless genocide in modern history.

Before the first European settlers arrived in North America in the 1500s, it was home to millions of people calledNorth American Indians. Indians came to North America thousands of years ago and settled throughout the continent.

The Indians lived in groups called tribes. By the time the first Europeans arrived, about 300 different tribes lived in North America, each with its own form of government, language, religious beliefs and culture. According to experts, before the discovery of America, up to 3 million people lived in the territory of the modern USA and Canada. By the end of the 19th century, their numbers had dropped to 200 thousand.

The tribe's way of life was mainly determined by the natural conditions of its habitat. The Inuit (Eskimos), shackled by the cold of the Arctic, hunted seals for food. They made houses, boats and clothing from seal skins. In the dry and hot southwest of the continent, the Pueblo Indians built adobe dwellings. Water was precious, so they invented special methods to extract water from deep underground.

The daily life of the North American Indian tribe was focused on the most basic needs - food and shelter. The main crops that the Indians grew were corn, squash and beans. Many tribes lived by hunting bison and other game or collecting berries, roots and other edible plants.

Religion occupied an important place in the lives of all Indians. They believed in a powerful world of spirits on which all people depended.

A variety of North American Indian household utensils, made of wood or stone, are also decorated with the heads of animals or people, or have the distorted shape of living creatures.

Such utensils include festive masks, the fantastic grimaces of which indicate the inclination of the imagination of this people towards the terrible; this also includes gray clay pipes with distorted figures of animals depicted on them, similar to those found in Melanesia; but first of all, pots used for food and fat, as well as drinking cups in the shape of animals or people, belong to this type of work. Animals (birds) often hold other animals or even tiny people in their teeth (beaks). The animal either stands on its feet, with its back hollowed out in the form of a shuttle, or lies on its back, and then the role of the vessel itself is played by the hollowed belly. In Berlin there is a drinking cup in the form of a human figure with sunken eyes and crooked legs.

This work examines only one side of the life of the Indians: their home.

The dwellings of North American Indians of different tribes were very different. Some used mobile dwellings, while the people of the Great Plains built tipis, conical tents lined with buffalo hides stretched over a wooden frame.

It is clear from the descriptions given that this was truly a great civilization and is an important part of American culture.

Relevance This work is the need to prove that the Indians were a highly developed society.

Goal of the work: find a description of the various types of dwellings of different tribes, compare the types of dwellings.

Tasks study material on the topic, select an object of study, systematize the data obtained.

Research methods. This work uses search, selection, analysis, synthesis and systematization of information.

Practical orientation. The work allows you to use the material in English, Russian, history lessons, in extracurricular activities, as well as by people learning the language.

Object of study: the way of life of North American Indians, their homes, as evidence of a high level of development.

Subject of study:types of dwellings of North American Indians.

Hypothesis: North American Indians, the aborigines of North America, are a highly developed civilization that possessed enormous knowledge in various fields and had an original, unique culture.

1.Indian Settlements

Just imagine that you visited one of the Indian settlements at any time between 1700 and 1900 and, having taken the warm welcome of the hospitable hosts who were always glad to give shelter to any traveler or stranger, made a little tour about the village. What would you have seen and paid attention to?

First of all you would have noticed that regardless of the sight of the settlement itself and its building, the site had been chosen with great care. Even in the places with no trees, mercilessly sun scorched and blown through with winds, Indians could find the place for their settlement, which was most protected from the sun, wind and rain. There in such a place, was to be some water source neaby. It could be a natural spring, a river, a brook or a stream with fish. There was to be some place for deer or some other wild animals to come and have a drink. The settlement could be built on the banks of great rivers which had been giving food for different cultures during the whole history of mankind and civilizations. And the place was to be protected from enimies attacks as much as possible.

Usually from 100 to 300 people lived in the settlement, though some of them could be very big: they housed about one thousand people. The territory was devided between clans and about 30-50 man, women and children lived in the plot. Some Indian camps didn't have any fortification. Others, on the other had been fortified very carefully. They had banks or wooden walls-it depended on the material they could find nearby. And this was the main factor for the sight and type of their homes. They were different in every region of the cultural distribution.

2. Types of Houses

2.1. Types of Houses of Hohoks and Anasasi

People of Hohoks and Anasasi who lived in the south-west, the region which was populated earlier that any other region at the beginning of our era, were skilled architects. They built their famous constructions including Kasa-Grande either with adobes, that is the bricks from the dirt dried in the sun or from kalishi the bricks made from dried hard clay. Adobes and kalishi which were called “the marble of the prairies” or “the marble of the steppe” by the first white Americans. The bricks were cheep and long lasting building material in the south-west. As for the people of the Anasazi culture they appeared to be wonderful architects of stone, having turned the caves of Mesa-Verde and in other places into the places of fantastic beauty. They also built their famous dwelling houses in Chako-Canyon which stand separately.

2.2. Houses of Navaho Indians

A little to the north we can see mud-hut houses of their nomadic neighbors – Navaho Indians. These mud-huts are unique because together with pueblos they are the only Indian houses which are used nowadays.

In the Navaho reservation you can often see these low habitation which are called Hogans is a circle which symbolized the sun and the Universe. On the top of it there is a wooden roof which has the from of a vault. The entrance is a simple doorway curtained with a blanket. It faces the rising sun and looks east. Not very far from it there is a bath-house which is a smaller Hogan, the place where a family can relax and rest. This bath-house is like a sauna or a Turkish bath. The baths like these are rather spread and can be seen practically in the settlements of all Indians of North America.

There was a “kamada” near the main building. The summer house was made of wooden posts under the trees and was the place for old people to rest, for children to play, for women to weave or cook food in.

2.3. The Hogans of Pauni and Mandanas

The dwellings in the ground of a lot of types could be found in the valleys and in the prairie, but mostly in the steps of Northern districts where the summer was very hot and the winter was very cold and severe. The Pauni in Nebraska and the Mandanas and the Hidatsas in South and North Dakota made their homes deep in the ground. Some of the dwellings of the Mandanas occupied the area of ​​25-30 meters and some families lived in them and there were also stalls for horses. The inhabitants of such houses rested and basked in the sun on the roofs of a Hogan.

2.4. The Irakeze and Their Teepees

The Irakeze tribes clustered in one long house. Some missionaries who had to live for some time at such a place stated that it was very difficult to endure the adore of fire heat, smoke different smells and barking of dogs, it was the usual type of living of an Indian in the central part of the Valley Region. It means on the most part of the territory were constructions of a marquees type which were called teepees. Some people call such dwellings wigwams, but it is a mistake. They are different. ”Tipi” is a cone-shaped tent fit close by painted bison skins. Such tents are familiar to many people from many films about Indians. Hunter tents were not very big, but the tents in the main camp and the tents for solemn ceremonies could be as high as 6 meters and occupy the territory of 6 meters by diameter. It took up to 50 bison skins to cover such a dwelling. Despite the size suited both the conditions of the territory and that could easily be put and rolled up. In summer the cover could be turned up to let fresh air in and in winter the cover was tied to a bearing and the latter was fixed to the ground to preserve warmth. The fire was made in the middle of the dwelling and smoke rose up through a chimney, made of reeds. The chimney was narrowing at the top. If the wind blew and there was smoke inside the tipi, the disposition of the bearing was changed and the smoke went out. Teepees were decorated inside with glass beads, porcupines quills, different signs and symbols of religious and mystical type. There was also a personal sing or a personal symbol of the owner of the tipi on the skin.

The teepees, which belonged to such tribes as the Shyens and the Blackfoot, were really wonderful constructions of remarkable beauty and peculiarity. So the Indians of the valley region had grounds to call the place they lived in “the land where there are a lot of teepees” - a paradise. They considered that it was boundless flourishing land, studded with glittering multi-colored tents-teepees.

They were common to other regions of South America, though they were not notable for such splendor as they were in the Valley region. Some tribes didn't decorate them at all. Others, especially those who lived in severe climate tried as they as they could to make them habitable, using mats, beddings carpets an everything they could find and all kinds of things that could serve as an insulating material.

In Canada and north-eastern coast people used birch bark and it wasn’t suitable for being decorated with drawings. It should also be mentioned that dwelling like teepees were known not only in North America, but in other regions of the world as well, especially in South-Eastern Asia. It is probable that ancient hunters from Asia who had come to Canada and North America lived in caves in winter and in camps in summer. Of course, such short-live materials like leather and wood couldn’t have remained preserved up to our time, so we have no archeological evidence of this proposition.

2.5. Wigwam

“Wigwam” was a dwelling which had wooden bearings like teepee, but its top is a cupola and it is covered not by skins but by woven mats of birch burk. For making the construction firm there was a wooden carcass inside. It resembled rostrum wooden saffoldings which were firmly tied to the foundation with ropes of fiber and it made the dwelling look like an upturned boat.

2.6. “Vikap” – a typical dwelling place of the Appalachian

Temporal Britter dwelling which were covered with wisps of reed and dry glass were called vikaps. Both Indians of deserts like the district of the Great Basin and of dry outskirts of south-west lived in such huts. They lived in poverty and had a low level of material culture. “Vikap” was a typical dwelling place of the Appalachian, the tribe of very brave but retarted people.

Wigwams and vikaps must be distinguished from the majestic dwelling houses covered with woven material of reed and which was characteristic for southern districts of the USA. These constructions were built by people who settled in the north-east and in the Mississippi Basin, the place, where once the builders of the famous temple mounds had lived and worked. These people built high imposing and majestic buildings of a rounded form with very hard wooden colonnade. Very often the houses were covered by a tightly women and painted mats made of reed. Forest tribes of North and Southern California, and those of north-east coast used to live in such houses with cupola roofs and trellis verandahs. Alone the whole length of such houses there were wide long benches on which people ate, slept, enjoyed themselves and had performances of religious rites. It was just the same way of life like that of different communities of South-East Asia.

2.7. The culture of “long house building”

The culture of “long house building” reached its peak in the South-west. It was already mentioned that this region was famous for its cultural achievements in a number of other spheres. Such tribes as Naiad, Tsimshian and Tlinkits made planks of red and yellow cedar and used them in house building which could have room for 30-40 people. Such buildings were as long as 15 meters wide. They were chef-d-oeutres of carpentry, of wooden architecture and tiled wooden decorations. The roofs were covered with barks of trees. The walls both inside and outside, partitions which divided inner lodgings into several rooms, were decorated with carvings and drawings. The themes of the drawings were connected with the Holly Spirits which were to protect the house and the household. The house of each chief was decorated in a particular way, and it was done with unique individuality. The ridge of the roof was also cared and drawn.

2.8. The Totem Pole

A well-known totem pole of the Indians of the North-west was placed in front of it. The History of the given family or that of the whole generation was reflected on the pole and the family emblem was placed on the top of the pole. Such poles were about 9 meters high were seen from far away and from the sea too and were a good orienteer. Even now the citizens of the Indian settlements lead an active life, expose interest to professional activities and handicraft and to the way of life of their great ancestors.

2.9. The Inner Decoration

If you were invited to enter an Indian house you would see there was almost no furniture. The rammed ground floor as smooth as parquet or glass, neatly swept with a broom of brunches or grass and covered with furs, fells and mats. There were curtains and amulets. The members of the family slept along the walls and each had his own place. Sometimes they slept on the bench, but more often they slept on the ground having wrapped oneself in a warm blanket. A typical kind of furniture was an Indian chaise lonque which gave support to the man who was sitting on the floor. Some parts of the house were intended for religious symbols and for the sacrit shaman ties. The houses were marked with stones, so that everyone should go round them as they were Jestined for the spirits of the dead ancestors or more aimed for religious-spiritual aims.

There was a hearth in the middle of the dwelling and the five was burning brightly during the day and it was choked a little during the night Fire was considered to be the gift of gods and it was kept vigilant watch on. Fire symbolized the sun, and the dwelling around the fire symbolized the universe: the door of the house faced the East to meet the first rays of the rising sun. The fire was carried from place to place in a buffalo horn, in a closed pitcher, or kept it inside a big wisp of a slowly smoulderng moss. A lot of tribes worshiped fire and there was “eternal fire” burning in their dwelling and a specially appointed fire custodian was responsible for it. The custodian had to keep it burning all the time.

3. Conclusion

The Indians who live or lived throughout North America east of the Rocky Mountains are the real “redskins,” their scattered remnants still living among the “pale-faces,” who deprived them of their ancient dwellings, their ancient faith, their ancient art. What we know about the art of these "real" Indians belongs largely to history.

They achieved great results in their development and made a huge contribution to world culture. One has only to look at the grandiose Pueblo buildings, maindas made of adobe brick, hogans, tipias, wigwams, vikaps, long huts, and one can immediately understand that these unique structures could only be made by amazingly talented, thinking, developed people.

The situation of modern North American Indians on the reservations of the USA and Canada is a separate topic. Some tribes were able to adapt better to the new conditions imposed on them, others worse. And yet, among today's Americans, Indians still stand apart. They were never able to fully fit into the new American nation, as blacks, Latin Americans, and descendants of immigrants from Europe and Asia fit into it. Residents of the United States still perceive Indians as something special, alien, and incomprehensible. In turn, the Indians cannot fully accept the white man's civilization. And this is their tragedy. Their old world was destroyed, and there was no worthy place for them in the new one. For people who were morally superior to their enslavers and observed the covenants of the Great Spirit cannot accept more primitive morality and come to terms with the fact that in the new society money is still remembered more often than God.

4. List of used literature

1. American History. Office of International Information Programs United States Department of State, 1994.
2. G. V. Nesterchuk, V. M. Ivanova “The USA and the Americans”, Minsk, “ graduate School", 1998.
3. The Internet
4. Myths and Legends of America, Saratov, 1996.
5. Paul Radin, Trickster. Study of the myths of North American Indians, St. Petersburg, 1999.
6. F. Jacquin, Indians during the European conquest of America, M., 1999.

National best reflect their image and lifestyle, which largely depends on the type of occupation of people and climatic conditions environment. Thus, sedentary peoples live in semi-dugouts and semi-dugouts, nomads live in tents and huts. Hunters cover their homes with skins, and farmers cover their homes with leaves, plant stems and soil. In previous articles we told you about and, and today our story is dedicated to American Indians and their famous traditional dwellings – tepees, teepees and hogans.

Wigwam - home of North American Indians

The wigwam represents the main type of North American Indians. In essence, a wigwam is an ordinary hut on a frame, which is made of thin tree trunks and covered with branches, bark or mats. This structure has a dome-shaped, but not conical, shape. Very often, a wigwam is confused with a tipi: take, for example, Sharik from the famous cartoon “Prostokvashino”, who was sure that he had drawn a wigwam on the stove. In fact, he drew a tipi that is shaped like a cone.

According to American Indian beliefs, the wigwam personified the body of the Great Spirit. The rounded shape of the dwelling symbolized the world, and a person leaving the wigwam into the white light was supposed to leave behind everything bad and unclean. In the middle of the wigwam there was a stove with, which symbolized the world axis, connecting the earth with the sky and leading directly to the sun. It was believed that such a chimney provided access to heaven and opened the entrance to spiritual power.

Another interesting fact is that the presence of a fireplace in a wigwam does not mean that the Indians cooked food there. The wigwam was intended exclusively for sleeping and resting, and all other business was done outside.

Tipi - portable house of nomadic Indians

The tipi, which, as we have already said, is often confused with a wigwam, is a portable device of the nomadic Indians of the Great Plains and some mountain tribes of the Far West. The tipi is shaped like a pyramid or cone (slightly slanted back or straight), made in the form of a frame of poles and covered with a panel of stitched deer or bison skins. Depending on the size of the structure, it took from 10 to 40 animal skins to make one tipi. Later, as America established trade with Europe, tipis were often covered with lighter canvas. The slight slope of some cone-shaped teepees made them able to withstand the strong winds of the Great Plains.

Inside the tipi there was a fireplace in the center, and on top (on the “ceiling”) there was a smoke hole with two smoke valves - blades that could be adjusted using poles. The lower part of the tipi was usually equipped with an additional lining, which insulated the people inside from the flow of outside air and, thus, created fairly comfortable living conditions during the cold season. However, in different Indian tribes tipis had their own design features and were somewhat different from each other.

Surprisingly, during the pre-colonial era, transportation of tipis was carried out mainly by women and dogs, and they spent a lot of effort on this due to quite heavy weight designs. The appearance of horses not only eliminated this problem, but also made it possible to increase the size of the tipi base to 5-7 m. Tipis were usually installed with the entrance to the east, but this rule was not observed if they were located in a circle.

Life in Indian tipis proceeded according to its own special etiquette. So, women were supposed to live in the southern part of the house, and men - in the northern. You had to move in the tipi according to the sun (clockwise). Guests, especially those who came for the first time, had to stay in the women's section. It was considered the height of indecency to walk between the fireplace and someone else, as this disrupted the connection of everyone present with the fire. To get to his place, a person, if possible, had to move behind the backs of the people sitting. But there were no special rituals for leaving: if someone wanted to leave, he could do it immediately and without unnecessary ceremony.

In modern life, tipis are most often used by conservative Indian families who sacredly honor the traditions of their ancestors, Indianists and historical reenactors. Also today, tourist tents called “teepees” are produced, the appearance of which is somewhat reminiscent of traditional Indian dwellings.

Hogan - home of the Navajo Indians

Hogan is another American Indian species, most common among the Navajo people. The traditional hogan has a conical shape and a round base, but today you can also find square hogans. As a rule, the hogan door is located on its eastern side, since the Indians are sure that when entering through such a door, the sun will definitely bring good luck to the house.

The Navajo believed that the first hogan for the first man and woman was built by the Coyote Spirit with the help of beavers. The beavers gave Coyote logs and taught him how to. Today such a hogan is called "male hogan" or "fork pole hogan", and its appearance resembles a pentagonal pyramid. Often, from the outside, the pentagonal shape of the house is hidden behind thick earthen walls that protect the structure from winter weather. At the front of such a hogan is the vestibule. "Men's hogans" are used primarily for private or religious ceremonies.

The Navajo used it as housing. "women's" or round hogans, which were also called “family houses”. Such dwellings were somewhat larger than the “male hogans” and did not have a vestibule. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the Navajo Indians built their hogans in accordance with the described method, but then they began to build houses in hexagonal and octagonal shapes. According to one version, such changes were associated with the advent of the railway. When the Indians got their hands on wooden sleepers that had to be laid horizontally, they began to build spacious and tall ones with additional rooms, but at the same time retaining the shape of a “female” hogan.

It is also interesting that the Indians had numerous beliefs associated with the hogan. For example, it was impossible to continue living in a hogan that was rubbed by a bear, or near which lightning struck. And if someone died in the hogan, then the body was walled up inside and burned along with it, or they took it out through the northern hole made in the wall, and the hogan was left forever. Moreover, the wood of abandoned hogans was never reused for any purpose.

In addition to hogans, the Navajo people also had underground, summer houses and Indian steam houses. Currently, some old hogans are used as ceremonial structures and some as dwellings. However, new hogans are rarely built with the purpose of further living in them.

In conclusion, I would like to say that wigwams, tipis and hogans are not all types American Indian National Houses . There were also such constructions as vikupa, maloka, toldo, etc., which had both common and distinctive features with the designs described above.

And today we will introduce our readers to the meaning of the word “wigwam” and its differences from the “teepees” of nomadic tribes.

Traditionally, a wigwam is the name given to the place of residence of the forest Indians, who lived in the northern and northeastern parts of the continent of North America. As a rule, a wigwam is a small hut,the total height of which is 3-4 meters. It is dome-shaped, and the largest wigwams can accommodate approximately 30 people at a time. Wigwams also include small-sized huts that have a cone shape and look like a tipi. Nowadays, wigwams are often used as a place for traditional rituals.

Analogs of wigwams can also be found among some African peoples, the Chukchi, Evengs and Soyts.

As a rule, the frame of the hut is made from thin and flexible tree trunks. They are tied and covered with tree bark or plant mats, corn leaves, skins and pieces of cloth. There is also a combined version of the covering, which is also additionally reinforced on top with a special outer frame, and in its absence, with trunks or special poles. The entrance to the wigwam is covered with a curtain, and its height can be either small or the full height of the wigwam.

At the top of the wigwam there is a chimney, which is often covered with a piece of bark. Raise it to remove smoke using a pole. Domed wigwam options can have either vertical or inclined walls. Most often, round wigwams are found, but sometimes you can see a rectangular structure. The wigwam can be elongated into a fairly long oval and also have a number of chimneys instead of just one. Typically, oval wigwams are called longhouses.

Cone-shaped wigwams have frames made of straight poles that are tied together at the top.

The word "wigwam" has its origins in the Proto-Algonquian dialect, and it is translated as "their house." However, there is also an opinion that this word came to the Indians from the language of the eastern Abenaki. Different peoples have their own version of the pronunciation of this word, but in general they are quite close.

Another term is also known - wetu. Although widely used by the Massachusetts Indians, the term has not caught on in the rest of the world.

Nowadays, a wigwam most often refers to domed dwellings, as well as huts that are simpler in design, in which Indians from other regions live. Each tribe gives its wigwam its own name.

In the literature, this term is most often found as a designation of the dome-shaped place of residence of the Indians from Tierra del Fuego. They are quite similar to the traditional wigwams of the Indians from North America, but they are distinguished by the absence of horizontal ties on the frame.

Also, a wigwam is often called the dwelling of Indians from the High Plains, which is correctly called the word.

Tents of various sizes, similar in shape to wigwams, are often used in various rituals of revival and purification in the tribes of the Great Plains, as well as from a number of other regions. In this case, a special steam room is made and the wigwam itself in this case is the body of the Great Spirit himself. The round shape denotes the world as a single whole, and the steam in this case is a prototype of the Great Spirit himself, who performs spiritual and purifying regeneration and transformation.

The Indians had two types of dwellings that distinguished them from other peoples - the tipi and the wigwam. They have features characteristic of the people who used them. They are also adapted to typical human activities and environments.

To each according to his needs

The houses of nomads and settled tribes are different. The former prefer tents and huts, while for the latter, stationary buildings or half-dugouts are more convenient. If we talk about the dwellings of hunters, then animal skins could often be seen on them. The North American Indians are a people characterized by a large number of each group having its own.

For example, the Navajos preferred half-dugouts. They created an adobe roof and a corridor called a hogan through which one could enter. Former residents of Florida built huts on piles, and for nomadic tribes from the Subarctic the wigwam was the most convenient. In the cold season it was covered with skin, and in the warm season it was covered with birch bark.

Scale and strength

The Iroquois built a frame from tree bark that could last up to 15 years. Usually during this period the community lived near the selected fields. When the land became worn out, resettlement occurred. These formations were quite high. They could reach 8 meters in height, from 6 to 10 m in width, and their length was sometimes 60 meters or more. In this regard, such dwellings were nicknamed long houses. The entrance here was located at the end part. Nearby there was a picture depicting the totem of the clan, the animal that patronized and protected him. The Indians' home was divided into several compartments, in each there lived a couple forming a family. Everyone had their own hearth. For sleeping there were bunks along the walls.

Settlements of settled and nomadic types

The Pueblo tribes built fortified houses from stones and bricks. The courtyard was surrounded by a semicircle or circle of buildings. The Indian people built entire terraces on which houses could be built in several tiers. The roof of one dwelling became an outside platform for another, located above.

People who chose forests to live built wigwams. This is a portable Indian dwelling in the shape of a dome. It was distinguished by its small size. The height, as a rule, did not exceed 10 feet, however, up to thirty inhabitants could fit inside. Now such buildings are used for ritual purposes. It is very important not to confuse them with teepees. For nomads, such a design was quite convenient, since they did not have to put much effort into construction. And it was always possible to move the house to a new territory.

Design Features

During the construction, trunks were used that bent well and were quite thin. To bind them, they used elm or birch bark and mats made from reeds or reeds. Corn leaves and grass were also suitable. The nomad's wigwam was covered with cloth or skin. To prevent them from slipping, use a frame from the outside, trunks or poles. The entrance hole was covered with a curtain. The walls were inclined and vertical. Layout - round or rectangular. To expand the building, it was pulled out into an oval, making several holes for smoke to escape. The pyramidal shape is characterized by the installation of even poles that are tied at the top.

The Indians' tent-like dwelling was called a tipi. It had poles, from which a conical-shaped frame was obtained. Bison skins were used to form the tire. The hole at the top was designed specifically to allow smoke from the fire to escape into the street. When it rained, it was covered with a blade. The walls were decorated with drawings and signs that meant they belonged to one or another owner. A teepee actually resembles a wigwam in many ways, which is why they are often confused. The Indian people also used this type of buildings quite often both in the North and in the South-West and Far West traditionally for the purposes of nomadism.

Dimensions

They were also built in a pyramidal or conical shape. The diameter of the base was up to 6 meters. The forming poles reached a length of 25 feet. The tire was made from On average, from 10 to 40 animals had to be killed to create the covering. When the North American Indians began to interact with Europeans, trade exchanges began. They had a canvas that was lighter. Both leather and fabric have their drawbacks, so combined products were often created. Wooden pins were used as fasteners, and the covering was tied from below with ropes to pegs sticking out of the ground. A gap was left specifically for air movement. Like the wigwam, there was a hole for the smoke to escape.

Useful devices

A distinctive feature is that there were valves that controlled air draft. To stretch them to the lower corners, leather straps were used. This Indian dwelling was quite comfortable. It was possible to attach a tent or another similar building to it, which significantly expanded the internal area. A belt descending from above, which served as an anchor, protected from strong winds. A lining up to 1.7 m wide was laid out at the bottom of the walls. It retained internal heat, protecting people from the external cold. When it rained, they stretched a semicircular ceiling, which was called “ozan”.

By examining the buildings of different tribes, you can see that each of them is distinguished by some peculiarity that is unique to it. The number of poles is not the same. They connect differently. The pyramid formed by them can be either inclined or straight. The base has an ovoid, round or oval shape. The tire is cut in a variety of options.

Other popular types of buildings

Another interesting dwelling of the Indians is the wickiap, which is also often identified with a wigwam. The dome-shaped structure is a hut where Apaches lived predominantly. It was covered with pieces of cloth and grass. They were often used for temporary purposes to provide shelter. They covered them with branches, mats, and placed them on the outskirts of the steppe. The Athabascans who inhabited Canada preferred this type of construction. It was perfect when an army was moving into battle and needed a temporary place to stay in order to take cover and hide the fire.

The Navajos settled in hogans. And also in summer houses and dugouts. The hogan has a circular cross-section, the walls form a cone. Square structures of this type are also often found. The door was located in the eastern part: it was believed that the sun would bring good luck into the house through it. The building also has great cult significance. There is a legend that the hogan was first built by a spirit in the form of a coyote. The beavers helped him. They were engaged in construction in order to provide housing for the first people. In the middle of the five-pointed pyramid there was a fork pole. The faces had three corners. The space between the beams was filled with earth. The walls were so dense and strong that they could effectively protect people from winter weather.

At the front there was a vestibule where religious ceremonies were held. Residential buildings were large in size. In the 20th century, the Navajo began to build buildings with 6 and 8 corners. This is due to the fact that at that time there was a railway operating nearby. It was possible to obtain sleepers and use them in construction. More space and space appeared, despite the fact that the house stood quite firmly. In a word, the habitats of the Indians are quite diverse, but each of them performed the functions assigned to it.

John Manchip White::: Indians of North America. Life, religion, culture

As we have already seen, the Hohokam and Anasazi peoples who lived in the southwest (which was settled before any other area) at the dawn of our era were already skilled architects. The Hohokam Indians built their famous buildings, including the Casa Grande, from either adobe - bricks made from sun-dried mud, or Kalish - bricks made of dried hard clay. Adobes and caliches, called "prairie marble" or "prairie marble" by early white American settlers, were cheap but strong and durable building materials; and today many residential and public buildings in the southwest are made from them. As for the Anasazi people, they showed themselves to be remarkable masters of stone architecture, transforming ordinary caves in Mesa Verde and other places into dwellings of truly fabulous beauty, and also building their famous free-standing “apartment buildings” in Chaco Canyon.

A little further north we encounter the earthen dwellings of their nomadic neighbors, the Navajo Indians. This is a large tribe of Athabaskan language family wandered for a long time before settling in the area of ​​Pueblo settlements on the Rio Grande. These "dugouts" are unique in that, along with the Pueblo dwellings, they are the only true Indian dwellings still in use today. On the Navajo Indian Reservation, you can see these squat, conspicuous dwellings called hogans. The floor inside the hogan is shaped like a circle, symbolizing the sun and the universe; on top it is covered with a vault-shaped wooden roof, which in turn is covered with tightly compacted earth. The entrance is a simple opening covered with a blanket. It faces east - towards the rising sun. At a short distance from the main hogan there is a “bathhouse” - a smaller hogan without a smoke hole; In this structure, reminiscent of a sauna or Turkish bath, the family can relax and unwind. Such “baths” are very common and are found among almost all Indians of North America. Next to the main dwelling there was also ramada - a gazebo made of wooden posts under the shade of trees, in which old people could take a nap, children could play, and women could weave or cook.

Dwellings made of earth, of various types, could be found on the plains and prairies, but mostly in the northern regions, where summers were very hot and winters were harsh and cold. The Pawnee in Nebraska, as well as the Mandan and Hidatsa in North and South Dakota, dug their homes deep into the ground. If the dwellings of the Pawnee were round, simple dugouts, then the dwellings of the Hidatsa and Mandans were large, skillfully made structures, supported from the inside by a powerful branched wooden frame. Some of the Mandan dwellings occupied an area with a diameter of 25–30 m; Several families lived in such a dwelling, and there were also stalls for horses, which the owners did not risk leaving outside. The inhabitants of such dwellings rested and basked in the sun on the roof of the hogan. The Iroquois tribes were also "crowded" into one long house; according to the testimony of European missionaries who had to temporarily live there, it was very difficult to withstand the “bouquet” of the heat of fire, smoke, various smells and dog barking.

In the central part of the Plains region, that is, in most of North America, the main dwelling of the Indian was a tent-type structure, which was called types. A tipi is sometimes mistakenly called a wigwam, but this is a completely different structure, as we will now see. The tipi was a cone-shaped tent covered with painted buffalo hide; Such tents are well known from many films about Indians. The hunting tents were small in size, but the tents in the main camp, as well as the tents for ceremonies could reach 6 m in height and occupy an area with a diameter of 6 m; its construction required up to 50 buffalo skins. Regardless of their size, tipis were perfectly suited to both the terrain and the living conditions of nomadic tribes: they were easy to set up and roll up. The tipi “set” included 3-4 main support posts and 24 smaller wooden supports. When the tent was dismantled, the already mentioned drag frame could be assembled from the same structures, on which both the folded tipi and other loads were placed. In the camp, the main wooden supports were placed together in a large triangle and tied at its apex, then auxiliary supports were attached to them, the covering was pulled over the top and the whole structure, which resembled a giant crescent, was held together with straps of sinew. The covering below was secured with wooden pegs. In winter, the cover inside the tipi was tied to the supports, and from below it was fixed to the ground to retain heat. In summer, on the contrary, the covering was thrown up to provide access fresh air. The fire was lit right in the center of the dwelling, and the smoke came out through a chimney neatly lined with reeds, tapering towards the top. If the wind blew in such a direction that the smoke remained inside the tipi, the position of the supports was very cleverly changed so that all the smoke escaped outside. Unlike dwellings made of earth, tipis were decorated on the outside with beads and porcupine quills; applied various signs and symbols of a religious and mystical nature; a personal sign or symbol of the owner of the home was also depicted outside. The tipis, which belonged to tribes such as the Cheyenne and Blackfeet, were truly remarkable structures of great beauty and originality. Not without reason, the Indians of the Plains region called paradise “the land of many teepees,” believing that it was an endless flowering land dotted with sparkling multi-colored teepee tents.

Teepees were also common in other areas of North America; however, there they were not distinguished by such splendor as on the Plains. Some tribes did not decorate the tipi at all; others, especially those who lived in harsh climates, tried to insulate them as best they could, using mats, bedding, carpets and anything else that came to hand that could serve as insulating material. In Canada and on the northeast coast, birch bark was used as a covering, which was not suitable for abundantly decorating it with designs. It should be noted that tipi-type dwellings were known not only in North America, but also in other areas of the world, especially in Northeast Asia. It is likely that the ancient Asian hunters who came to America and Canada lived in caves in winter and in tent dwellings in summer; although, of course, such short-lived materials as leather and wood could not survive to this day, and therefore we have no archaeological confirmation of this assumption. People of that time are only called “cave people.”

Wigwam - a dwelling that has wooden supports, similar to a tipi, but its top is rounded, and it is covered not with skins, but with woven mats or birch bark. Often, for stability, a wooden frame was located inside the wigwam, resembling a platform of wooden scaffolding, which was firmly attached to the base with fiber ropes, which made the dwelling look like an overturned boat. More fragile, usually temporary dwellings, covered over the frame with bunches of reeds and dry grass, were called by pick-ups. Such huts were lived in desert areas like the Great Basin and in the arid outskirts of the southwest, where tribes lived in poverty and at a very low level. material culture. Vikap was a typical dwelling of the Apaches - a brave but very backward tribe.

Wigwams and lodges should be distinguished from the stately residential structures covered with woven reed material that characterized the southern regions of the United States. These structures were built by people who settled in the southeast and Mississippi basin, where the builders of the famous “temple” mounds once lived and worked. These people built impressive and majestic-looking tall, rounded buildings with a powerful wooden colonnade. Often the roofs and walls of houses were covered with tightly woven and brightly decorated reed mats. The forest tribes of North and South Carolina, as well as the northeastern coast, lived in such houses. Long houses with domed roofs and lattice verandas were often found here. Along the entire length of these houses there were wide benches on which entire families ate, slept, entertained and performed religious rites, reminiscent of similar communities in Southeast Asia.

The culture of building "longhouses" reached its highest level in the north-west; as already noted, the area is known for its cultural achievements in a number of other areas. Tribes such as the Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit made planks and beams from red and yellow cedar that were used to build houses that could house 30 to 40 people. Such houses were almost always at least 15 m long and at least 12 m wide and were masterpieces of carpentry, timber architecture and tiled wood decoration. The boards had skillfully made grooves and tongues that fit firmly into the joint grooves. The roofs of the houses were covered with tree bark. The walls, both inside and outside, and the partitions that divided the interior into several rooms were decorated with carvings and drawings; their themes were associated with sacred spirits, which were supposed to protect the house and household members. The house of each leader was decorated in a special way, and uniquely individually. The roof ridge was covered with carvings and drawings, and the famous totem pole of the Northwestern Indians was placed in front of the house, which depicted the history of a given family or clan; at the top of the pillar a family or clan emblem was depicted. These pillars, sometimes reaching 9 meters in height, were clearly visible from afar, including from the sea, and served as a good landmark in the area. And today, residents of the Indian settlements of the northwest lead an active life, showing interest in the professional occupations and crafts and the entire way of life of their great ancestors.