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Site Index | CVA Index | Site Map | Native American Home
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Wigwam
The wigwam was the primary residential structure for many indigenous groups in northeastern North America, especially people in the Algonquian language group, including the Ojibwe people. Wigwams were framed with bent saplings and covered with reed mats and/or bark. They were generally from 7 to 20 feet in diameter. Sleeping platforms were often located inside the bark-covered winter dwellings. Reed-covered wigwams were portable structures, because the reed mats, which required much time to weave, could be removed and folded, then carried along on a journey. Once the new site was reached, saplings could be cut, the frame built, and the reed mats placed over the structure to create a readily portable summer home (Nabokov and Easton 1989).
Diagram of a wigwam with a sapling frame and interior platforms. (Drawing based on Nabokov and Easton 1989)
Source: Nabokov, Peter and Robert Easton. Native American Architecture. New York: Oxford UP, 1989.
