tipi poles

[Matt B]

So we purchased a tipi, but it didn't come with poles. It was a good deal, even without poles.

I've read about making your own poles. But don't have the resources to do my own, or time. I've got a few leads to purchasing some.

I also read that you can use poles that are 3 feet more than the diameter of tipi. So it's an 18ft tipi. I can get some 21 foot poles, 4 inch diameter. Would those work? I know if they were a little longer, it would look better.

For now this is just going in the back yard for the kids to play in. Maybe in a year or two we will take it to a rondy. Thanks all.

 

[Holley]

You can use the 21 foot poles and be correct. Just make sure the thickness can hold 'out' the cover. And make sure you have enough poles. THe use of long poles is a 20th. cent thing. The 1830-1890s tipi used smaller poles that just made it past the tie point by 3 to 5 feet if lucky.

 

[Okwaho]

I agree with the length. The longer the poles project above the frame the better chance of water running down them in the rain.I bought some balsa fir poles last year for my Indian lodges including a conical I am thinking of setting up.The gentleman was from up north somewhere,maybe Minnesota or some where like that. He usually makes the rondevous circuit hauling the poles.They weren't cheap but good poles and light also.
Tom Patton

 

Lodge pole pine is your best bet. They are strong and light and straight. I think track sells them but maybe if you surf the net you can find a better deal on them.
Don

 

[Wefarmasmidgen]

First a contact for purchasing poles. It's the only one I have, but I've seen his poles and they look good:
Pete's Custom Poles
8965 Hwy 12
Fall Creek WI 54742
715 834 0235
[email protected]

Next, it is my understanding that, originally, there should be as much pole outside the tipi as inside the tipi - i.e. the poles should be pretty much twice as long as the tipi is high. The rain "gets caught at the tip of the poles and then runs down the poles rather than inside the lodge." This, of course is "ideal" maybe. The way the poles were transported (they were used as frames for the travois to haul belongings from one site to another) meant that the ends were worn down and poles got shorter - probably in fairly short order.

Hope this helps.

****
Soaring Spirit
Don't take life so seriously, it isn't permanent

 

[Holley]

rain "gets caught at the tip of the poles and then runs down the poles rather than inside the lodge." This, of course is "ideal" maybe. The way the poles were transported (they were used as frames for the travois to haul belongings from one site to another) meant that the ends were worn down and poles got shorter - probably in fairly short order.

This statement is unfortunately not true on all cases. As said before, tipis poles were short on the original lodges and not this big hour glass look some people mistakenly believe. And rain does collect on those long poles going right into the tipi. The only thing stopping it is a good tight closure on the smoke flaps or a rain cover inside which you will have to empty later. Unless it goes into the fire. Long poles came into being after the turn of the 20th. cent. at the time of the Big Wild West shows, resvervation camps for show and then the lack of dragging the poles around. But also remember that Indians were using waggons to haul many of their poles around instead of with a travoise.

 

[TANSTAAFL]

As the lodge poles were not always readily available in (present day) Kansas, Nebraska & etc, the plains Indians always started out with quite long poles. Doing double duty as the travois thingy, they had a tendency to wear down getting dragged around for a season or two.

 

[Holley]

I am going to pose a question on that last statement. How do you know the length of the poles they got originally? What do you base it on? If I were getting new poles they would not be that long because they break, are heavier, and are harder to manipulate. I have not seen any photo, sketeches or writing to say they got long poles to begin with. Not saying it never happened...but would love to know what you base this on.

 

Parkman (is the only one that comes to mind immediately) talks about the Sioux going to get new poles for their tipi's because of wear in using as travois and needed new ones. I think they started off with long ones and as they wore down they were replaced. One of those common horse sense thingys. If you start with short poles then they would have to be replaced sooner than annualy. Your tipi wouldn't be set up because your poles were too short, or I guess you could get by with folding the bottom of your tipi cover up :grin:
Don

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Properly selected lodge poles are quite slender, another couple feet or so in length would have very little effect as to weight.

I am no stranger to lodges, rondyed and Wyoming winter camped in them for years. Having many to choose from, we were very selective in picking out the lodge pole pines we used.

 

[Holley]

Ok....great start. :applause: But the 'horse sence' would come in actually making a travouis to carry poles and then measureing before and after the travel. How much is really worn down in travel. They were not on the 'road' all the time. Just from one spot to another. I have thousands of pictures of tipis from all time periods and the poles are generally on the short side and definitly not the big long ones of today. Again we cannot assume a length or conclusions from camping in a tipi to get guestament of the length. I wish I knew some of the riders who travoied in tipi poles a few years ago at one of the Westerns to find out their impute. :hmm:

 

[TANSTAAFL]

The tepee dwellers were not earthen lodge Mandan or Pawnee farmers. The ones whom predominately utilized the tipi as a year round shelter were hunter gathers, no way could they have remained stationary for any length of time. Winter camps maybe, but for the most part consisted of small bands, always on the move, following the bison herds, That was an iffy thing indeed to predict when or where those herds would be, they had to find them.

Photographs of lodges would denote late period, they were likely taken on reservations by that time, no traveling and no great selection of lodge poles.

 

When I was a kid in north east Oregon we helped the Nez Perce set their tipis.The poles werent very long but the old men said that in the old days they had very long poles.This is coming from the ancestors.

 

[Holley]

:grin: You are right about photographs, but lets try old sketch book drawings, drawings by Kurz, Catlin, Miller and Bodmer. And I also have degerriotypes or tin types from the 1850s showing tipi camps. There are only two of these that I know of.

Listen guys, I am not saying they did not have long poles durring the 1840's, but-there is no real proof of this. On the contrary, most points to poles that were not much more than 5 to 8 feet or more when new. As for the Nez Perce, how far back does that information go? Long poles were getting to be the norm from 1890 to now. The Crows in particular loved them as well as the Nez Perce, Sarcee and Gros Vente.(sp)....

I stopped assuming a great deal about tipis when I started doing years of historic research into them. There are always exceptions and nothing is the norm. :shocked2:

 

[whiskey]

I have a tepee and lived in it for a whole winter in the mountains of montana. My personnal preference is to use shorter poles and not ones that stick out way above the lodge. They are a pain in the --- to transport and setting up is easier with shorter.
Tepees in paintings and drawings of the 1850s and earlier do not show extrememly long poles. Many are scraggly things that just barely stick out of the lodge.
Also, the large, rectangular smoke flaps with the ropes on the bottom edge do not show up in pre 1850 art. Their smoke flaps were a simple peeling back of the lodge at the top. The smoke flaps do not look like an added on item as we see on tepees now. Most if not all tepees bought from commercial makers today reflect the reservation period, not the days of the fur trade or free ranging plains indians.

 

[gerald]

on your tipi poles three of the poles are the most have to be longer then the canvas are the door pole and the north and south pole that they be lorger size and the rest my be smaller size.
and also should be long enife to be used as the flap so you can close the flaps if it rains.
also when you tie all the poles together tat it is above the canvas. when it rains the water follows the underside of the pole some time you have to use a stick to make the water coninue to follow the pole

 

[Okwaho]

Tipis, I'm in agreement with you on this.I use an Ojibwa peaked lodge which is basically two tripods, each with two extra poles for rounding and a ridge pole so I can make it as long or short as needed.I use two more poles in the center to keep the canvas flat.I use four rectangular piecs of canvas with the top two overlapping ,a diamond piece at the rear and a triangular piece in front for a door.I leave the top open unless the weather is really bad,ie, raining,snowing,really cold etc in which case I flop over rectangular pieces of canvas leaving a small smoke hole.I don't use any loops,rings, or back splices and I use hemp rope.The name for this lodge is NISAWA'OGAN which is Ojibwa:"a lodge with something between it".I can also use the tripods butted against each other with extra poles for rounding and make a conical which is a very old lodge in the Northeast.See the second and fourth lodges as shown on this link:[url] http://www.i-is.com/st.clairflats/nativelodges.htm[/url]

I can use this lodge either as a peaked lodge or without the ridge pole as a conical depending on the space available and if it's just me with little gear.I keep my poles cut about 3-4 feet above the ridge line so there will be less water drainage. If raining I wrap the corners with an old blanket as per a 1788 Davies painting from the Quebec area and can stuff part of a blnket inside the poles on the corners.
Tom Patton

 

[Okwaho]

PS, that's NOT me in any of these images, I refer to my lodge{2nd one} as "the gypsy lodge" It's a very historically authentic portable lodge,as were the conical,the dome,and the small lean to.I suggest Frances Densmore's "Chippewa Customs" where Native Ojibwa/Chippewa lodges are discussed.
Megwetch
Tom Patton

 

Those are nice,but I think they were talking about plains lodges.However long the poles, could be something that varied tribe to tribe.Maybe one had long and another had short.Maybe the White Eye who drew in his journal had short pages and couldnt draw long poles.One way wasnt the only way. :grin:

 

[Holley]

Tribes do vary in their poles, but still, the length seems to be short for almost all in the early time period. My 'visual' matterial is also varied and still shows the short poles. Though they may look good to us, they are still too much to carry for wieght and a bit impractical. Still cannot asume they had the LONG poles.

And I love the woodlands camp. It is practical.

Hey, will you be at the Southeastern in Tenn.? I will be there with my wedge tent. Cannot bring the big tipi due to injury problems. But I can have a good time an swap stories. Will have a copy of the new book on tipis with me...the still in progress with the editor book copy.