Ute Architecture
Most people who belonged to the Ute
group of Native Americans lived in what is now Utah and Colorado, in
the high western plains and in the Rocky Mountains. They built wooden houses
called wickiups.
You build a wickiup by cutting down young willow trees (saplings). You need about thirty
of them. Then you strip off all the small branches (but save them). You stick the poles into small holes in the
ground in a circle so they will stand up. Then you bend over the poles in pairs (across the circle from each
other) and tie the tops together with thin strips of bark or leather. When you have all the poles tied together
you attach branches horizontally all the way around. Then you cover the whole thing with the small branches, blankets,
leather skins, big leaves, long grass, or anything else you have handy.
Wickiups (WICK-ee-ups) were not meant to live in like your house today.
They're more like the way you use your tent when you go camping. You keep
your stuff inside, and you sleep in there sometimes (especially if it looks
like rain), but otherwise you spend most of your time outside - you cook
outside, and you play outside, and you go to the bathroom outside (privately, away from other people), and sometimes
you sleep outside.
But sometimes people did build fires inside their wickiup, to keep them warm. They built fires on the ground in a circle of stones, and sometimes had a large flat stone in front of the fire like a hearth. They brought piles of juniper tree bark inside the wickiup to use as beds.
But sometimes people did build fires inside their wickiup, to keep them warm. They built fires on the ground in a circle of stones, and sometimes had a large flat stone in front of the fire like a hearth. They brought piles of juniper tree bark inside the wickiup to use as beds.
When Ute people were traveling around gathering
food, they sometimes made a simple shelter to get out of the sun or the
wind by just breaking a tree branch partway through and bending it down
to the ground. They also built platforms in trees like your treehouse to
store food on or to use as lookout posts.
Click on these books to buy them at Amazon.com and learn more:
A
project with Ute architecture
More about Ute people
Iroquois architecture
North American architecture
Main North America page
Kidipede
home page
Tell a friend about this page
Did Kidipede answer your question?
Yes, thanks! / No, can you help me?
