NOETH AMEKICAN INDIAN DWELLINGS 



By T. T. Waterman 

 Miixco Nacional, Guatemala 



[With 11 plates] 



The Indians of North America occupied an enormous area, in 

 which they encountered almost every known variety of climate and 

 scenery. In the various regions accordingly there were evolved 

 different ways of living and, especially, different forms of dwellings. 

 The forms of Indian habitations were affected by climate and were 

 modified according to materials available and house types of dif- 

 ferent regions accordingly offer marked contrasts. Some were 

 simple; so simple that nothing could be more startlingly primitive 

 (see the Paiute village shown beloAv, pi, 11, fig. 2). Some were very 

 complex, and hundreds of feet in length. Some were made of tre- 

 mendous beams in a cyclopean style of carpentry, while in at least 

 one area stone masonry was developed, and the ruins of the ancient 

 stone structures are imposing even to-day (see, for example, Pueblo 

 Bonito, pi. 7). Some Indian dwellings are picturesque, some are 

 odd, and all are interesting. The way in which geographic forces 

 operated in shaping or modifying the habitations of the Indian 

 tribes is an interesting matter for investigation. The subject may 

 well be introduced by glancing at two habitation types, both im- 

 portant and characteristic but very different, the wigwam and the 

 tipi. 



THE WIGWAM 



The word " wigwam," in the language of the Algonkian-speaking 

 peoples of the Atlantic side of the continent, means simply a dwell- 

 ing. The term was applied by Europeans to the types of structures 

 they encountered among the tribes of the middle Atlantic states. 

 These habitations were essentially permanent structures and w^ere 

 grouped into regular towns, with squares and public buildings, which 

 were fortified, and in many cases defended with earthworks. Mov- 



\ Reprinted by permission from The Geographical Review, Vol. XIV, No. 1, Janu- 

 ary, 1924. 



461 



