Wetern Art Ante 1800 Smithsonian Images National Anthropological Archives

Earlier the arrival of Europeans, Indigenous peoples in Canada had their own building traditions. Dwellings and structures differed vastly from nation to nation, depending on their purpose and office. Building traditions also reflected important aspects of Indigenous peoples' respective cultures, societies, geographies, environments and spiritual beliefs. This commodity provides an overview of the main types of dwellings and structures used past Indigenous peoples in the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, Plateau, Plains and Eastern Woodlands.

Before the arrival of Europeans, Ethnic peoples in Canada had their own building traditions. Dwellings and structures differed vastly from nation to nation, depending on their purpose and function. Edifice traditions also reflected important aspects of Indigenous peoples' respective cultures, societies, geographies, environments and spiritual behavior. This article provides an overview of the principal types of dwellings and structures used by Indigenous peoples in the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Declension, Plateau, Plains and Eastern Woodlands.

Introduction

Indigenous compages across Canada looked and functioned differently depending on the community that created it. The climate, environment and geographic region also factored into Indigenous designs. In the Arctic, for case, the Inuit synthetic igloos out of snow to shelter hunters and families, while First Nations on the Plains often used tipis fabricated of wood and hide to do the same.

Despite their differences, ane striking characteristic of all Indigenous architecture was the connexion between culture and building form. The  wigwam, tipi and igloo were highly evolved edifice forms, perfectly suited to their environments and to the requirements of mobile hunting-and-gathering cultures. The  longhouse, pit firm and plank house were various responses to the need for more than permanent building forms.

In add-on to coming together the primary need for shelter, Indigenous structures as well served every bit expressions of spiritual behavior and cultural values. For the Iroquoians, the longhouse was a function of their identity and carried philosophical meaning. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy — originally made up of the Mohawk, Oneida,  Seneca, Cayuga and Onondaga (the Tuscarora joined later) — characterized their association as a longhouse of five fires.

Each of the sections below explores the traditional dwellings of Ethnic peoples that traditionally occupied territories in the following regions of Canada: the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Declension, Plateau, Plains and Eastern Woodlands. It is important to notation that an Indigenous building form was non necessarily specific to only one geographic region. For case, the wigwam was used in both the Eastern Woodlands and parts of the Subarctic. Similarly, sod houses were fabricated past a broad multifariousness of Ethnic peoples from southern British Columbia, the Prairies, the Arctic and Labrador.

Longhouse

The characteristic dwelling of Iroquoian peoples living in the Eastern Woodlands, such every bit the Haudenosaunee, Wendat and Neutral, was the longhouse. It was a long and narrow structure that was home to several families related through the female line. Iroquoian villages consisted of a group of longhouses, oft surrounded by a wall of poles. Iroquoians used the longhouse as a metaphor for life; it was where families gathered, where religious ceremonies took place, and where political decisions were fabricated.

A reconstructed longhouse at Ste-Marie Among the Hurons, near Midland, Ontario. Congenital c. 1640, reconstructed 1960s.

Wigwam

Wigwams were building types that could generally business firm one or two families. They were congenital by Indigenous peoples living in the Eastern Woodlands and in the eastern parts of the Subarctic region. Wigwams could be disassembled and reassembled for Indigenous peoples who moved a lot for hunting and food gathering purposes. The construction and design of wigwams looked different depending on the nation. Algonquian peoples more often than not preferred a cone-shaped roof, while others preferred a dome-shaped design. Some of these dome-shaped varieties were built elongated, and equally such, resembled the Iroquoian longhouse.

View of a Mi'kmaq wigwam, a homo, and a child, probably Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, photographed 1860.

Tipi

The tipi is a cone-shaped construction fashioned from wooden poles and coverings sewn from the hides of the bison. Indigenous peoples living on the Plains developed this portable firm-form to come across the needs of their nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle. Many Indigenous peoples on the Plains, including the Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy), Cree, Ojibwe, Assiniboine and Dakota, moved seasonally in pursuit of food and condom wintering places. They were too shaped past a dependence upon the bison, until the animal's eradication in the mid- to late 19th century.

The nighttime portion at the top represents the sky, the dark band at the bottom represents the globe.

Pit Business firm

Plateau Ethnic peoples, including Interior Salish nations like the Nlaka'pamux (Thompson) and Secwepemc (Shuswap), mostly built pit houses. These were broadly characterized past a log-framed structure built over a dug out flooring and covered with an insulating layer of earth. The pit house is regarded as maybe North America's oldest firm blazon.

Pit houses were the winter underground dwellings of the Plateau people. The only entrance was at the peak and information technology was reached by ladder.

Plank House

One of the about well-known of pieces of Northwest Coast architecture was the plank house. More often than not fabricated of large lengths and dimensions of cedar, these houses sheltered families and were also used for ceremonial purposes, such as the potlatch. Some Ethnic nations that fabricated plank houses include the Haida, Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth.

Haida proclaimed clan membership through an elaborate brandish of family crests, carved on totem poles erected in front end of their houses.

Sod House

Indigenous peoples in southern British Columbia, the Prairies, the Arctic and Labrador commonly built housing with sod — the grass and soil beneath that is held together by the grass' roots. Settlers also built sod houses in the era of colonization.

Thule Winter House

The Thule occupied the Arctic, from Alaska to Greenland, around 1000 Advertisement. Their winter firm was built partly undercover and designed to provide comfort and warmth for prolonged periods of indoor living. The near impressive feature of the Thule wintertime house was the roof, which was sometimes fabricated from the bones of whales.

The floors and lower walls are made with flagstones, and the roof is held up by whale bones covered with skins and slabs of rock. The house is then covered with sod.

(courtesy Canadian Museum of Culture)

Igloo

The Thule were ancestors to the Inuit, who synthetic their own wintertime dwelling — the igloo. This construction was made of hard snowfall and, depending on its purpose, could shelter ane person or a family. The igloo form may well have been an old ane: archaeologists have found snow knives among the Dorset people, the culture which preceded the Thule, suggesting that the Dorset may have congenital with snow prior to thousand CE.

Inuk man building an igloo.

Tupiq

In the summers, which were warm and a time for active hunting and fishing, the Inuit needed a more mobile house construction. They therefore ofttimes lived in a portable unproblematic tent known as a tupiq, sewn from skins of seal, caribou or other animals.

Inuit family in front of a tupiq, circa 1915.

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