Tipi or not to Tipi?

[Nativearizonan]

I read about a schoolhouse that was made of well hewn interlocking logs. It was moved three times, during the day of horse drawn wagons, before it did catch fire by accident and burned down. It was easier to move it than to cut and hew that many logs, but it was only moved a few miles.

I've known of a lot of historic log buildings that have been moved to museums and such recently, as well.

 

[tenngun]

I was about to quote that. Pre horse tipis tended to be small,10/12 foot.Looking for insprition for the tipi isnt too hard. Laps had them, and siberian people also. Great lakes tribes used them covered with birch bark. Sub artic indians had them covered with caribo hide. People of the great basin made wikyups from brush in a tipi shape. None of these were true or classic tipis, but differ only in mild details. Its simple in shape and gives the most square feet of floor space compared to wall material. The clasic true tipi does not seem to have evolved until after the mountain man times. However our info on early 19th cent tipis is sketchy.

 

[faste350]

i have had about all of them, but the tipi was my favorite as far as room and the open fire is great. but the hauling and set up wasn't much fun. my go to and the one i own now is the "A" frame or wedge with a stove. plenty of room and easy to set up an tear down. good luck with which ever one you choose!

 

[Black Hand]

I was thinking of a tipi in terms of a large tent essentially, but in reality it was closer to a log cabin in terms of its' permanence?

It is a large tent used by nomadic tribes which would be moved to new locations several times a year as needed. The poles would be dragged by horses and the cover rolled and transported.

Comfort level of a properly appointed Tipi would be better than a drafty, dark, damp cabin on any day.

 

[b737tvc]

who sells the wedge? any photos?

Beaver T.

 

[Black Hand]

Tentsmiths has several different sizes and types. http://tentsmiths.com/period-tents-museum-wedge-tents.html or http://tentsmiths.com/period-tents-wedge-tents.html

I purchased a wedge tent from them several years ago - easy to work with and a great product. I'd suggest having a stove-jack installed, even though they aren't HC - a stove sure makes the difference on those cold, rainy/snowy days. Keep the better half comfortable and they will keep coming.

 

[smoothshooter]

I am under the impression that the Indians invented the teepee made out of animal hides, and the whites came up with the canvas version in the early reservation period, perhaps in the 1860's, or so.

Since the reservation Indian's hunting activities were severely limited or curtailed altogether, the canvas version supplied by the government allowed them to still have a type of shelter that they were familiar with and worked for them.

 

[tenngun]

Whites supplied canvas, maybe as early as the 1850s, I don't think whites ever made canvas tipis before R&K. Canvas tipis of the reservation period ere Indian made. It was said that the Sibly tent had been inspired by Tipis, but conical round tents were in use before the sibly. Who knows?

 

[tenngun]

repeated :redface:

 

[coloradoclyde]

I am under the impression that the Indians invented the teepee made out of animal hides, and the whites came up with the canvas version in the early reservation period, perhaps in the 1860's, or so.

Since the reservation Indian's hunting activities were severely limited or curtailed altogether, the canvas version supplied by the government allowed them to still have a type of shelter that they were familiar with and worked for them.

Seems logical... :hmm: ...but needs citation and date verification...

 

[greggholmes]

my parents had a teepee and a baker, we used the baker for the trader business. I can and have set up both of them by myself. they dont have the teepee anymore but i still use the baker. (purchased in about '79) it was custom made with a taller backside. my little group is growing so im going to be looking for a tall wall tent. i still set up by myself.

Yes thats a geo metro

 

[necchi]

Nice job packing!!

 

[coloradoclyde]

:rotf: :thumbsup:

 

[greggholmes]

i had all this stuff in the car

this is from about 1991 going to rondy.
Same Baker tent different poles, different car

 

[coloradoclyde]

:shocked2: ...Where did you work? A sardine factory..... :rotf:

 

[greggholmes]

played alot of tetris

 

[smoothshooter]

I should have said the US government supplied the canvas, and the Indians cut and stitched the various pieces together.
Who knows, maybe at certain times whites were contracted to actually manufacture a few tipis once in a while. Canvas may have been an item of trade occaisionally as well.
I have seen many old photographs from the 1850's through the 1870's showing tipis made from either hides and what looked like canvas, with hide-tipis more prevalent early, and canvas a little more common later ( especially on the reservations after 1880 ). The ones made out of animal hides that I have seen in photographs were a lot smaller for obvious reasons than the canvas ones.
Then the issue gets even more muddled when you consider that when a white man married an Indian woman and wanted to live in a canvas tipi, if he, his Indian wife, and possibly some of her family members all worked on it, would it be considered made by whites or Indians?

 

[omarick1948]

OK, In the more than a couple years of being a muzzle loader, I have personally owned three tipi's (one a 22 footer), a Sibley tent, a Baker tent, Marquet(sic) and two large wall tents. The romance of a Tipi was nice inspiration in historic living, but a PITA for the amount of stuff you had to pack with it. I spent a lot a "red eye" nights from all of the smoke on windy days and nights no matter how you adjusted the smoke flaps.

The Sibley was better than nothing on a rainy night, but just barely. The Baker tent was a bi_ch to set-up with two many poles to play with. The Marquet was mainly for my Trader business till I finely figured out that "white men needed to have four walls", so I bought two wall tents. A 8'x 12'x 7' ridge pole wall tent for me when I camped by myself or took another person, and our family sized wall tent that was 14'x18' with a 9 ft. ridge pole. In this wall tent I had a dandy long burning stove and had no !#*&(? smoke and I (we) were toasty warm at the coldest rendezvous or deer hunting trip. We have all been to an event where it rained all weekend and our kid's would drive us nuts going in and out of our smaller shelter, but my big wall tent made it nice, as the kid's had a place to gather and play and mostly keep dry.

Rick

 

[LaBonte]

. The clasic true tipi does not seem to have evolved until after the mountain man times.

While doing some research last night and came across some info from the L & C Expedition - of course tonight I can't find all of them but here are some

Capt. Lewis and Some of the party went over to See the Indians Camps their lodges are 80 in nomber and contain about 10 Souls Each, the most of them women and children. The women are employed dressing buffaloe hides for to make themselves cloathing and to make their lodges &c.

1805 - Whitehouse’s Journal”“ Joseph Whitehouse
”¦The natives are light Complectioned decent looking people the most of them well cloathed with Mt. Sheep and other Skins. They have buffalow Robes leather lodges to live in, but have no meat at this time.

April 7, 1805 ”“ Mandan to Yellowstone ”“ LEWIS

”¦Capt. Clark myself the two Interpretters and the woman and child sleep in a tent fo dressed skins, this tent is in the Indian stile, formed of a number of dressed Buffaloe skins sewed together with sinues. It is cut in such a manner that when foalded double it forms the quarter of a circle, and is left open at one side here it may be attatched or loosened at pleasure (2u) by strings which are sewed to its sided for the purpose.
[/b]

August 21 - Lewis and Clark Journals - ???

”¦these leggings are made of the skins of the antelope and the chemise usually of those of the large deer Bighorn and the smallest elk.

”¦They [Sioux] live in in tents of dressed leather, which they transport by means of horses and dogs, and ramble from place to place during the greater part of the year.

Ferris an Osborne Russell mention the use of lodges by both the "whites" and Indians - Russell, IIRc mentioned some being of quite large size.

A. J. Miller and Bodmer painted several lodges of the classic type.

 

[LaBonte]

Also buried in the deep recesses of my memory there is a note of the Indians using cloth (hemp/sail cloth?) tipis at the big gathering of the tribes and whites while gathered for parley in 1851 near Forts Laramie, WY.

Also on several trade lists old lodge skins were noted as being used for pack cloths.