Houses Winter: Wigwams - Round or Loaf Shaped
Bent Sapling Frame made from young willow or other trees, stripped of bark, sharpened at one end and charred. Those charred ends help keep them from rotting and from insects eating them. They bury those in the ground, bend them over to create a set of arches. Each set of arches then is tied or lashed together with twine they make from plant fibers. Then more saplings are selected to weave or wrap around the arches in a series of rows about one - two feet apart. Each intersecting set of poles is tied together. The frame is tough and strong enough to climb on and hold one or two people at the same time.
The covering consisted of cattails selected for their wide leaves in the summer and sewn together with long flat rib bone needles and twine. They fold over the tops of the leaves and twist twine around each pair to create a nice top finished edge. The bottoms are trimmed to an even length. The mats that are created are tied onto the frame in overlapping layers to help insulate the family in the winter.
In earlier times prior to the coming of the white men from Europe it is very likely that the mats were covered with a layer of bark held in place with an outer sapling frame. Benches or sleeping platforms were built that measured about two feet wide and about 18” off the ground all the way around on the inside of the house.
Twined storage bags, splint baskets and bark buckets were the main containers for use as food storage, and for clothing, tools, medicine, toys, and record keeping devices. Many were hung up on the rafters of wigwams and longhouses.
Houses Summer: Loaf Shaped or Long Rectangular Longhouses
The summer houses of many historical woodland people consisted of thick poles stripped of their bark, sharpened at one end and charred, set into the ground in a trench about two-three feet deep. These are spaced about two feet apart and are around seven or eight feet tall. These vertical posts will carry the roof load and need to be straight.
The horizontal poles were not as thick but could be very long and were positioned on the outside of the vertical poles and tied into place in rows about one to two feet apart. The roof, if loaf shape was consistent with the former winter wigwam dwelling and they simply bent the sets of vertical poles to form a series of arches and then wove or ran horizontal poles similarly to the winter house.
The frame of later houses and other structures as described by British traders in the Ohio Valley seem to indicate the use of a pitched or peaked roof house and the cover consisted of sheets of elm, tulip poplar, cedar or basswood bark. The trees had to be girdled and stripped of their bark in the spring around mid-April and the trees left were burned around the based and felled to create needed canoes or other wooden objects.
Benches of their houses were made from small saplings and were built on either side of a center aisle. There were carvings on the inside posts of Lenape Delaware and Shawnee Council Houses. A few of those were salvaged by Shawnee from one council house in Ohio and taken west in the 1830’s to Kansas and then taken to Oklahoma. Not much is known specifically about those carvings or what they stood for, which ones were used at what locations, etc.
Left: Sleeping platforms with hides on for mattresses
on the sides of the longhouse walls
Right: Loaf Shaped Wigwams
Lower Right: Bags and extra mats, & tools hanging in the ceiling from rafters inside a longhouse
Below left : Peaked Bark Houses or longhouses
Left: Peeling Bark: First the tree is cut or girdled at the bottom, around the top and down the side to facilitate peeling the bark off in one large sheet. The Native American Indian people used an axe to girdle and beveled wooden, stone or bone tools to carefully push the bark away from the tree. When it was off, it was flattened and put on the sides and roof of the house and lashed down with an outer frame. This bark was used to cover the houses, made into baskets, and used for canoes.
Right: Lenape Village 1600 AD