Tipi or not to Tipi?

[b737tvc]

Ok, its been two years now and have done nothing. Im so torn between a bakers style shelter or a Tipi. It seams to be hard to find poles and transporting them but I like the size . The baker is to small I think and is easier to transport. I need help to make up my mind..Help!

Beaver T.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

I don't own either, but if I did: it would be a tipi, hands down, and I would be proud as a peacock towards it. A lot of people survived and thrived in them for a long time, I suppose I could to if I bought a quality one.

 

[Calum]

'afternoon,

I don't have any experience with a tipi, but a member of a former unit did have a Baker.

I don't know the maker, but it was difficult to set up (needing 4 people for optimum ease, I think). And leaked, badly. He finally gave it away. I think part of his issue was that he was usually in a rush, both to set up and tear down, but that's my only experience with one.

Calum

 

[Black Hand]

Ok, its been two years now and have done nothing. Im so torn between a bakers style shelter or a Tipi. It seams to be hard to find poles and transporting them but I like the size . The baker is to small I think and is easier to transport. I need help to make up my mind..Help!

Beaver T.

Tipis are nice, but a pain to transport and not appropriate for most (except maybe a trapper with a native wife - tipis were the property of the woman). Bakers aren't truly appropriate for the 1830s or before

A wedge is likely the best all-around choice. Easy to transport, set up and appropriate for 1830s and before.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Ok, its been two years now and have done nothing. Im so torn between a bakers style shelter or a Tipi. It seams to be hard to find poles and transporting them but I like the size . The baker is to small I think and is easier to transport. I need help to make up my mind..Help!

Beaver T.

Tipis are nice, but a pain to transport and not appropriate for most (except maybe a trapper with a native wife - tipis were the property of the woman). Bakers aren't truly appropriate for the 1830s or before

A wedge is likely the best all-around choice. Easy to transport, set up and appropriate for 1830s and before.

Yep. The "appropriate" issue is a stickler at many events. Getting screamed at by a Dog Soldier who is too big for his breech clout is not a fun way to start a week long event after driving for six hours and setting up a new lodge. A phone call before heading to an event can help a lot. The 'pc/hc' thing has gotten way-way out of hand. :cursing: I never went for a tipi because of the transportation issue. One usually needs a pick-up truck with custom built racks to hold the poles. That cuts down fuel milage sumptin' awful. For many that is a major issue by itself. BTW, I had a one-pole/pyramid that served me well and I never had a complaint.

 

[Coot]

I agree with Black Hand. A tipi is arguably the hardest tent to transport due to the extreme length and number of poles as well as the size & weight of a single piece of canvas. They are not authentic for most impressions and are not allowed at many stricter events. The baker is also frowned upon at many events as being too late in time and is hard to set up without helping hands. Wedges are correct for just about any event and are easy to set up. Small wall tents offer more usable space for their size than a wedge but are a bit more time consuming to set up. The problem with larger wall tents (and thus the reason to go to marque tents in large sizes) is that as the size of the tent grows, the single piece of canvas gets heavy and hard to fold & load. As with any discussion of gear, what is "best" varies a lot based on the intended use.

 

[swathdiver]

I read in one of my Eric Sloane books that is was the white man who showed the Tee Pee to the natives. I once lived in a teepee for six months or so and really liked it. It kept us cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Ours was really big and took at least 3 but usually 4 to set up the poles. My memory has faded now as to its size and number and length of poles but it did sleep 17 or so.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

I read in one of my Eric Sloane books that is was the white man who showed the Tee Pee to the natives.

So white men invented the tipi, showed it to native americans, and then never used it for themselves?... :hmm:

 

[coloradoclyde]

A tipi is a big commitment....but once set up you could live in it......I had friends that did just that in the summers..

I had a baker..... :td: pain to set up, pain to keep set up and half the room inside is wasted.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I read in one of my Eric Sloane books that is was the white man who showed the Tee Pee to the natives.

So white men invented the tipi, showed it to native americans, and then never used it for themselves?... :hmm:

I wonder which book? :hmm:
Of course the important thing to remember is the he was an artist and not a historian or anthropologist...

Writing a book does not validate ones ideas.....I sure would love to see some supporting documentation on that claim.

 

[pondoro]

I used bakers tents as a Boy Scout, they are very easy to set up when you have a bunch of help. They are also efficient when you pack kids in like sardines, heads toward the flap end and duffel bags at the low end. But I agree that for two adults who want a large room you would waste half the tent. On the other hand a low-sided wall tent twice as big, though giving you twice the floor space, would also waste half of it's footprint. A high sided wall tent will get heavy. So the baker is not really that bad given what it is.

 

[Mike Payne]

I had a Tipi a lot of years ago and I discovered that the best thing about a Tipi is having a friend that owns one! :haha:
Mike

 

[tenngun]

Black hand is on Mark. I owned a tipi and it's the perfect tent. However, any whites in them was limited in area. They are out of place through most of white frontier history and most of the US or Canada.
I think bakers are correct in shape back to cave man times. However we don't see them discribed or painted except sailors puting one up on a beach while taking on water or working on the ship.
Wedges are correct at any event from first colonies to the end of the Indian wars, they are easy to transport, only take minuets to set up, and handle most weather.

 

[swathdiver]

So white men invented the tipi, showed it to native americans, and then never used it for themselves?

Well, I scanned through several copies of my books by Sloane and then remembered that I read them around the time I was reading Muzzleloader and some other book that escapes my memory at present. I'll keep lookin' as time permits and get back to ya.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

So white men invented the tipi, showed it to native americans, and then never used it for themselves?

Well, I scanned through several copiesaa of my books by Sloane and then remembered that I read them around the time I was reading Muzzleloader and some other book that escapes my memory at present. I'll keep lookin' as time permits and get back to ya.

I don't know, it would seem like the burden of proof is astronomically high for this one. The tipi was developed and used out of necessity by many of the Plains Tribes due to their nomadic lifestyle. You would either have to prove that they used something else prior to European contact, in which case there would be a mountain of archeological evidence of these pre-tipi portable shelters, or that they were not nomadic until European contact, and were gifted the tipi for some odd reason by a group of people who never used it themselves, and then forced into nomadic lifestyle, at which point there would be evidence of permanent structures and established cities covering the whole of the plains region...good luck

 

[Nativearizonan]

I think the idea of the white man giving the tipi to the plains NDNs is a stretch, but tipis (lavvu) were used by nomadic Europeans (Samis, or Laplanders) before America was discovered, so is could be possible, I suppose.

Before they had horses, the tipi would not have been a very suitable nomadic dwelling. It would have taken a very large pack of very large dogs to move one, think over a dozen full thickness large buffalo hides and 17-21 poles over 20' long. The poles would be possible, to some extent, but the cover would really be impossible to move by dog, I would think. It is obvious the lifestyle of the nomadic tribes evolved quickly after the introduction of the horse, which started in the 16th century, and was pretty widespread by the late 17th century. That means there was 200 years, or 7-10 generations for them to develop into the plains NDNs we think of.

BTW, I have an 18' tipi, and it is really a semi-permanent dwelling, when you think about it. A wedge, or just about anything you can conceive out of a rectangular piece of canvas is far more practical to move from place to place.

 

[Nativearizonan]

As far as a pre-equine native home, think wikiup. It is much easier to build one on site with shorter pieces of wood, and they have been found all over North America dating back at least 8,000 years. A hide covered wikiup is most likely the fore-runner of the tipi, as the evolution isn't too hard to figure out.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

ok. Thank you. 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?

 

[Nativearizonan]

I just did a bit more research, and I guess I will have to take back what I just posted. The Spanish explorer Juan de Onate described tipis in 1599, and said they held 4 beds and the covers were so fine they only weighed 50 pounds, and were waterproof. They also described them being moved by their dogs, which were larger than the dogs of mexico and went around with sores on their backs.

So, I guess I'm already eating crow on that. The tipis were smaller, though.

I think they were and are somewhere right in between a tent and a log cabin. It's much harder to move a log cabin, although it has been done many times.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

It's much harder to move a log cabin, although it has been done many times.

most of the time, after all the valuable inside were removed, the owner would burn it down to recover the nails and hardware