Transcript Native American Dwellings from A to Z

Native American Dwellings
from A to Z
Presented by
Grade 4 – Room 323
Mrs. Rohrman - Miss Possiel
Native Americans used the materials they found in their
region to create their homes.
Adobe homes were built
by Southwest Native Americans
In dry, desert areas.
Buffalo and Bison
were hunted by Native
Americans who lived in the
West. Their skins were used
to cover dwellings such as
tipis.
Chickees were naturally airconditioned homes built by the
Seminole in hot, humid, and
swampy areas in the region that
now includes Florida. They were
built up high to keep out snakes
and other intruders.
Dome-shaped homes, also known as wigwams,
were built by Native American groups like the Algonquin, who
stayed in the same place for months at a time. The dwellings
were made of wooden frames covered with woven mats and
sheets of bark from trees like the birch.
Earth lodges were homes built low to the ground and
covered with sod by tribes in the Great Plains region, where there
were few trees and harsh winters made it necessary to have
protective shelter.
Faces
Native American artists carved human, animal, and
mythical faces out of wood in totem poles. Totem poles depicted
legends or true stories of people in the tribe. They stood outside
dwellings and villages.
Grass House
Native Americans living in the Southern Plains
built large wooden-framed dwellings that were covered with prairie
grass. They could be as high as 40 feet tall.
The weather in this area stayed warm most of the time, so living in a
grass-covered house was more practical than it would be in a harsher
climate.
Hogan A Hogan was a oneroomed dwelling built by the Navajo
people, who lived in what is now
Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Early
hogans were made of dirt- or claycovered poles (left). Later hogans were
also built using wood or stone (right).
Igloo and Inuit
The Inuit of northern Canada built dome-shaped snow
and ice houses called Igloos.
Igloos were good places to live in the freezing polar
region of North America. They were well-insulated with
snow, and the ice walls protected the people inside from
wind and bad weather.
Outside
Inside
Just For Men Many Native American groups
built wigwam-like Sweat Lodges. They did not live in
the sweat lodge; it was a place where Native American
men would gather for spiritual ceremonies.
Kiva
The Pueblo, Hopi, and Anasazi groups of
Native Americans built below-ground rooms for different
spiritual ceremonies, called Kivas. To get into or out of
the kiva, you needed to use a ladder.
Kiva
at
night
Inside
Longhouse
Coastal Native Americans built
longhouses built of thick cedar planks. They chopped
down and split large cedar trees using beaver teeth and
stone axes.
Longhouses were huge – ranging in length from about
100 to 500 feet and 25 feet wide. Some longhouses
were so large an entire village lived within the single
structure!
The only openings in the whole building were the
entrance door and a hole in the roof to allow smoke to
escape.
Outside
Inside
How mats were woven and tied
Mats
Making different types of mats
was a very important activity in
Native American life. Native
Americans used woven mats
made from grass or mats made
from animal skins to cover their
shelters. The picture at right
shows a mat-covered tipi.
Nez Perce
The
, a group of Native
Americans who lived in the Plains, built
small villages along streams and rivers.
They also built longhouses, but theirs were
covered with mats. These longhouses
were large and used for group ceremonies
as well as extra winter housing for families.
Oral Storytelling was the main way Native Americans passed
down their stories and legends from one generation to the next. During the
times when the weather made them stay in their dwellings, Native American
children enjoyed listening to their elders’ stories. The photo above shows a
modern day Native American storyteller, with a prop tipi in the background.
Palisade
Some groups of Northeast
Woodlands Native Americans
lived in villages that were
palisaded. That means the
village had a circular wall of
logs around it, for protection
from enemies or intruders.
Quilts Native Americans learned
quiltmaking from European settlers. They
became experts at designing and producing
quilts that included traditional designs from
their own cultures. Here are some examples
of Native American quilts. Quilts were
important inside Native American homes.
Rugs
Native American tribes like the
Navajo are known for their
beautiful and intricate rug
designs, incorporating their
culture and respect for nature
with beautiful colors and
patterns. Rugs were an important
feature in Native American
dwellings.
Symbols Native Americans decorated
their dwellings with symbols from nature,
from stories and myths, and from their daily
own lives.
Tipi
The tipi (teepee) was
movable dwelling used by
native American groups that
needed to be able to pack
up and move to a different
location periodically, taking
their homes with them. It
was similar to the camping
tents we use today.
Underground
Some Native American
structures, such as kivas,
were built partially
underground. Native
Americans also used
underground holes for
storage.
Village
Whether they traveled and lived in tipis or
stayed in one place and lived in wigwams,
Native Americans frequently chose to live
close to their relatives, in villages.
Wigwam or Wickiup or Wetus
Different groups of Northeast Woodlands Native
Americans called this different names, all beginning
with the letter W!. These structures could be coneshaped, dome-shaped, or rectangular, but they all
had a wooden frame covered with tree bark, animal
hides, or woven mats.
X marks the spot – a great place to
camp!
Native Americans picked the perfect spot at the water’s edge to set up
their tipi village! It reminds us of a campsite that you might see today.
Yellowstone National Park
Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming is the home
of the Wind River Reservation, the nation’s
seventh-largest reservation, where many
descendents of Arapahoe and Shoshone people
still live.
Zuni Pueblo
These pictures of Zuni Pueblo
villages show how the Zuni built
multi-story dwellings, with
ladders to provide access to
higher floors. Small window
openings helped keep sand out
of the house, while thick walls
helped absorbed heat and kept
the inside cooler.