The Plains Indian Tipi

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"There were 50 tents made of tanned hides, very bright red and white in color and bell-shaped, with flaps and openings, and built as skillfully as those of Italy, and so large that in the most ordinary ones four different mattresses and beds were easily accommodated. The Indians … are as well sheltered in their tents as they could be in any house. "  —From Don Juan de Oate's account of a 1599 Great Plains expedition

"Tazhebute came to join us with a good Indian tent . . . Those tents have no equal for camping purposes. They shed the rain well, and in cold weather one can build afire right in the center of them, with the smoke rising cleanly up out of the top, where the flaps are set to suit the way of the wind." —Thomas Henry Tibbles, describing an 1881 trip among the Ponca Indians in his book, Buckskin and Blanket Days 

"Ye kin live in it forty below zero and fifty 'bove suffocation an' still be happy. It's the changeablest kind of a layout for livin' in." — Caleb Clark, The Old Trapper, in Ernest Thompson Seton's Two Little Savages, 1903

"It's a whole new experience. It's like living inside and outside both at once. During the day — even on dark days — a tipi has a mellow, even illumination that's never been equalled in a house. When it rains, you're right out in it, yet  protected. You're right there, but warm and dry, too. And at night, wow. It's a groove to watch the fire making shadows on the wall and — later — maybe wake up to see the moon or some stars shining down through the poles in the smoke hole. Fantastic.

"I once heard Buckminster Fuller tell how he wanted to build a double-walled geodesic dome house for movie director John Houston and Fuller's basic idea was that living in the place would be a natural inside-outside thing. But it's already been done. The Indians were way ahead." —A back-to-the-land tipi dweller, 1969

For over 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 his white conqueror - the tipi was much more: Both home and church . . . a sacred place of Being and sharing with family, friends, Nature and Man-Above.

Unfortunately, the white man - with a fragmented and neatly compartmented view of existence - found the All-encompassing Indian way literally "beyond understanding" and, therefore, of no consequence. This high-handed and naive judgment extended, of course, to the lodges of the Plains Indians.

"We could not only move our houses but could move entire villages, and we often did. In this respect we were better off than the white man is. We moved to suit the seasons, in summer or in winter; we moved to be near a good supply of wood and water, or for fresh pasture for our ponies."

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