Native American History for Kids - Homes

Longhouses - In olden times, some Native Americans on both the east and west coast built longhouses out of wood logs, instead of building teepees covered with fur. Many families lived together in one longhouse. Fireplaces and fire pits ran down the middle of the longhouse for heat and for people to share as a place to cook food. Each family was assigned their own place in the longhouse along a wall, so that one side of their space was the wood of the longhouse. They separated the sides of these spaces with beautifully woven blankets. Sometimes they left one side, the side facing the middle open, and sometimes they closed that as well with blankets for privacy.

Teepees - A tepee (tipi, teepee) was a Plains people home. It were made of buffalo hide fastened around very long wooden poles, designed in a cone shape. Tepees were warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Some were quite large. They could hold 30 or 40 people comfortably. The 15-foot teepe poles were sometimes hard to find. Some people became really good at making sturdy poles. They used them for trade. A typical trade would be one horse for five poles.

Wigwams - Some Indians in the northeast built wigwams. A wigwam was a round building with a round top. It was made from tree logs, covered again with bark. Some were additionally covered with mats or hide. Some were quite large - about 6 feet long. There were huge rush mats in front of the fire, and brightly dyed mats on the walls. The women made the wigwam as colorful as they could. Extended families - kids, parents, and grandparents - all lived together in one wigwam.

Hogans - Hogans were Navajo homes. They were made of wooden poles covered with tree bark and mud. They were permanent structures. They were also very dark and gloomy. They had no windows, and only a small hole in the ceiling to let out smoke. The door of a hogan always faced east to welcome the rising sun. Hogans were usually one room affairs. People sheltered in the hogan at night. The only furniture in a hogan was bedding. Bedding was usually a sheepskin on the floor. Each Navajo family had two hogans - one in the desert and one in the mountains.

Wickiups - Wickiups were Apache homes. The Apache bent young trees, creating a U shape. They attached the bent trees together to make an upside-down U-shaped home. The frame of bent young trees was covered with animal skin. There was one open room in a Wickiup, with an entrance added to the front. They were not very big, and families could get quite crowded fitting in, so they rarely had furniture. But these homes made it easy for Apaches to move easily and rapidly.

Chickees - Seminole families each had their own home. Each home was called a chickee. The Seminole Chickees - sounds like a rock group, doesn't it.  But they were very well built homes. They had to be, to survive hurricanes, sleeting rain, and wild animals. Chickees were platform houses, made of logs. The bottom floor was about 3 feet off the ground for protection from flooding and animals. The roof was slanted.

Adobe  -  The Pueblo were cliff dwellers. They built homes of adobe brick on cliffs and on mesas in the southwest. Homes were stacked one on top of the other, like an apartment complex. Sometimes they were stacked four high. Those who had homes on the ground floor could simply walk up to their door. Others had to climb ladders to reach their front door.

Northwest Plank Houses -  The Northwest Pacific Coastal Native Americans did not live in tepees as did the Yakima Native Americans of Eastern Washington. Instead, they lived in longhouses built of thick cedar planks. These homes were also called plank houses. These early people chopped down and split massive cedar trees using beaver teeth and stone axes. Amazing! The longhouses were huge. Some were about 100 feet long and 25 feet wide, with low roofs for easy heating. The only openings in the whole building was the entrance door and a hole in the roof to allow smoke to escape.

Plateau Indian Pit Homes - The Plateau Indians built temporary summer homes, and permanent winter pit homes that created a village on the banks of a major waterway.  Pit homes were built partially underground. Some were little round houses with dirt roofs.  Some were long lodges. To build a pit-house, first you dug a pit about six feet deep.  Some pit-houses were built for a small family group and perhaps were only 20 feet in diameter. But some were much larger - as much as 60 feet wide and 100 feet long.  The small ones were usually oval in shape. The large ones were usually rectangular. But construction of all pit-houses started by digging a pit that was the outline of the house. Once you had dug the pit, next you piled up rocks to make walls. Then you added some wooden posts to support a roof.  Roofs were made of everything from planks to woven reeds. (Baskets and mats were also made out of reeds.)  

Earth Homes - Some Plains people were not hunters and gatherers. They were farmers. They lived in villages. They built round earth lodges with materials they found. These were huge things. Some were 40 feet in diameter and about 15 feet high. They were warm in the winter and cool in the summer. These were not temporary homes. They were fixed structures.

Igloos - Igloos or ice houses were built in central Canada. Theses homes were well constructed. They fit blocks tightly together. Then, using lamps, they applied heat to the walls of their home, both inside and out. The ice melted a little, and quickly refroze. This sealed the blocks into one sheet of ice, and made their homes nearly air tight. One oil lamp could heat a home. Homes had windows made of clear sheets of ice. They had doors of ice that could be opened and closed. During construction, they built in an ice shelf around the entire inside wall. They used the shelf to spread out bedding and for a place to sit. The ice shelves stayed frozen because one side of the shelf was part of the outside wall. The people stayed warm while sleeping on the shelves because they were tucked inside fur sleeping bags.

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