At home: our home from our home.x

Our tipi frame is coming down tomorrow, to be moved to Glastonbury. It's an exiting time, although exhausting. I found this info on the tipi from a great site, http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.arc.048


For more than 400 years, knowledgeable people have agreed that the Plains Indian tipi is absolutely the finest of all movable shelters. To the Indian - whose concept of life and religion was broader, deeper, richer and infinitely more unified than that of the white man- the tipi was much more: both home and church, a sacred place of being and sharing with family, friends, nature and Man-Above.

Plains Indians set up tipis by first lashing three or four poles to form the frame. Most Siouan-speaking groups used a three-pole frame, whereas western Plains tribes such as the Crows and Blackfeet favored the four-pole frame. The remaining poles are placed on the frame, and the cover is stretched over the poles. The cover is laced together in the front of the tipi from the ground to the smoke flaps, leaving an opening for the doorway. The final step is to secure the bottom of the cover to the ground. Today, tipis are tied down with tent pegs. In the past, stones or sod blocks often secured the base of the cover. When the tipi was removed, the rocks were rolled off the cover and left as circular alignments, now called tipi rings. These provide the main archaeological evidence of early tipi use.

Tipis are not perfectly circular. The poles on the back are usually slightly closer to the center, creating a steeper surface. This produces a slightly tilted cone, with the steeper back side facing windward and a more gradual slope on the leeward side with the doorway. This arrangement improves stability in strong winds. The difference between the long and short axis is less than 10 percent, and the floor plan is slightly egg shaped.

Tipis are, surprisingly perhaps, quite heavy. The poles for an average tipi weigh around 400 pounds, and a hide cover adds another 100 to 150 pounds. When Plains Indians acquired the horse, they could travel ten to fifteen miles a day using the poles as a travois and putting portions of the cover on each travois. Before the horse, however, dogs were the only pack animals, and it was a strenuous job for a family to move 500 to 600 pounds of tipi poles and cover, plus another 100 pounds or more of bison robes, stored food, and personal possessions five or six miles a day.

Our tipi poles, moved my truck. If I could get our driving cob, jack to take them I would. If only..... X