American Indian Literature and Cultures

Plains Architecture: Tipis and Sweatlodges

The purpose of this page is to get you better acquainted with the symbolism behind Plains Architecture. Much of this information is based on Peter Nabokov and Robert Eastman's book Native American Architecture. You may either read this page chronologically or skip ahead to any of the following topics:

• Types of Structures on the Great Plains
• Tipis: Symbolism
• Tipis: Construction
• Sweatlodges
• Bibliography

  Types of Structures on the Great Plains

  The most common types of domestic architecture on the Great Plains included earthlodges, grass houses, tipis. Common ceremonial structures were sun dance lodges and sweathouses.

  1. Earthlodges
     Earthlodges housed the earliest farming cultures on the Plains and appeared in the region around 700 A.D. They were used by semi-nomadic villagers (Nabokov 126). On the left is an example of the Crow Creek Village that was built using Earthlodges. This was an early (pre-Sioux) community located on what is now the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation. The community was massacred when other tribes moved into the area. The small circles on the map represent the locations of earthlodges in the village. On the right is a reproduction of how the earthlodges and the village might have appeared. Click on the images to get to a page about this archeological site.
     
     1. 
  2. The Sioux: Tipis and Ceremonial Houses
     While the Sioux used both sun dance lodges and sweatlodges for ceremonial purposes, they favored tipis for everyday living.

  Tipis: Symbolism

  Painted tipis were one important kind of pre-contact pictographic writing. But what did they say? Peter Nabokov and Robert Easton note that

  • Paintings on Plains Indian tipis depicted was exploits of the dwelling's head male occupant, or supernatural creatures associated with sacred powers he or his direct ancestors had received during visions.

    The Kiowa of the southern Plains and the Blackfeet of the northern Plains were renowned for their decorated tipis. For the Blackfeet a standard arrangement of panels was customary (165).

  I have analyzed the modern reproduction shown below using the Blackfeet symbolism given by Nabokov and Easton. What is the difference between telling the story of one's life and visions in this format and in the format of Black Elk Speaks?

   

  Plains Indian Tipi Symbolism

  A modern replica analyzed using
  Nabokov and Easton's Native American Architecture, page 164

   

   

  This Tipi is an "image map": to discover the symbolism behind any section click on that section

  

  Tipis: Construction

   

  "The tipi required only wood poles, stakes, pins, hide covers, and hopes to provide a quickly assembled and easily dismantled shelter in both sweltering and freezing weather. To erect a tipi, a three- or four-pole frame was lifted into place. The preferred wood was young, straight, and extremely long lodgepole pine, but red cedar was an acceptable second choice...Women sewed the semicircular cover together with sinew for thread, making sure their stitching produced a waterproof cover" (Nabokov and Easton 153).

  •    

     

    

    A Sioux Woman Painting a Parfleche, c. 1900

    Sweatlodges

    • "Sweatlodges were built by all of the Plains Tribes. The plan of the Sioux Inipi or purification lodge, shows the sacred path between a fire, where rocks are heated, and the lodge pit where the rocks are watered to produce steam once the lodge frame is covered with hides or cloth." (Nabokov and Easton 171).

    Bibliography

    Nabokov, Peter and Robert Easton, Native American Architecture. New York: Oxford UP, 1989.

    Tipi Image-map Graphics from Nomadics Tipi Makers. All other images have links to their original sources.

   

  ---

  Homepages:
  
  • Click here to return to the English 558 Main Page Click here to return to the Black Elk Speaks Home Page