Posted by Robert Dilley on July 12, 1999 at 17:29:31 from geog-rc2006f.lakeheadu.ca:
In Reply to: Re: Return to the Wigwam posted by Bob Hollis on July 10, 1999 at 17:30:11:
Further to reinforce the comments of Bob Hollis and myself, on Saturday we were at Old Fort William (advertised as "The World's Largest Fur-Trading Post) where there is an Indian encampment outside the Fort. I asked the Ojibwa gentlemen there what they called their structures of poles lashed into a cone and walled with birch bark. "Wigwam" was the answer -- from the Ojibwa word for birch bark. Apparently the bark is rolled up and taken with them when they move: the poles are left in situ. As Bob observes, the tipi was the Plains Indian accommodation, using skins or buffalo hide rather than birchbark. So whether charcoal-burners' homes of larch poles and turf, or children's toys of fibreglass and nylon, "wigwam" is equally authentic (or equally inauthentic) with "tipi". The shape is the same in either case; the materials are different.