Native American Indian Houses Photo Gallery

Native American Ojibwa Indian house made of mats and bark

Native American Ojibwa Indians matt house or lodge.

Native American Kansa Sioux Indian bark lodge or house

Native American Mandan Sioux Earthen Lodge 

Native American Indian houses of the Northwest.  

Shoshoni Indian Tipi made of skins 

Historic Apache Indian Village Photographs

Historic Apache Indian Village Photographs

Apache Indian family photographed outside their hut in Arizona in 1885.

Apache Indian camp taken in 1885.

This photo was captioned "Captive White Boy" whose name was Santiago McKinn. The photo was taken in Arizona in 1884.

Apache Indian Dancers from 1886 in Arizona.

Apache Indian woman working in the camp.  Photo taken in 1916

Three Apache Indian males photographed outside their huts in 1886 in Arizona

Description of the Construction of an Algonquin Lodge (House)

Description of the Construction of an Algonquin Lodge (House)

The typical Algonquian lodge of the woods and lakes was oval, and the conical lodge, 

made of sheets of birch-bark, also occurred. The Mohegan, and to some extent the Virginia 

Indians, constructed long communal houses which accommodated a number of  families. 

The dwelings in the N. were sometimes built of logs, while those in the aand parts of the

 W. were constructed of saplings fixed in the ground, bent over at the top, and covered with

 movable matting, thus forming a long, round- roofed house. The Delawares and some other

 eastern tribes, preferring to live separately, built smaller dwellings. The manner of 

construction among the Delawares is thus described by Zeisberger: "They peel trees, 

abounding with sap, such as lime trees, etc., then cutting the bark into pieces of 2 or 3

 yards in length, they lay heavy stones upon them, that they may become flat and even

 in drying. The frame of the hut is made by driving poles into the ground and strengthening

 them by cross beams. This framework is covered, both within and without, with the above-

mentioned pieces of  bark, fastened very tight with bast or twigs of hickory, which are

 remarkably tough. The roof runs up to a ridge, and is covered in the same manner. 

These huts have one opening in the roof to let out the smoke and one in the side for an

 entrance. The door is made of a large piece of bark without either bolt or lock, a stick

 leaning against the outside being a sign that nobody is at home. The light enters by small

 openings furnished with sliding shutters." The covering was some- times rushes or long

 reed grass. The houses of the Illinois are described by Hennepin as 
being "made with long arbors" and covered with double mats of flat flags. Those of the 

Chippewa and the Plains tribes were circular or conical, a framework covered with bark

 among the former, a frame of movable poles covered with dressed skins amongthe latter. 

The villages, especially along the Atlantic coast, were frequently surrounded with stock-

 ades of tall, stout stakes firmly set in the ground. A number of the western Algonquian 

towns are described by early explorers as fortified or as surrounded with palisades. 

Native American Aleut Indian Pictures

Native American Aleut Indian Pictures

Native American Aleut Indian Women Making Baskets

Aleut Indian Women Drying Fish in Alaska

 Aleut Indian House on Seal Island Alaska

Aleut Indian Girls in Attu Alaska Weaving Baskets

Native American Aleut Indian Hunters

Aleut Indian Fishermen

Aleut Eskimo Indian Children Photo

Aleut Eskimo Indian Woman Making Baskets

About the Cheyenne Indian Tribe

ABOUT THE CHEYENNE INDIAN 

A Short History of the Cheyenne Indians
    This nation has received a variety of names from travellers and the neighboring tribes, as Shyennes, Shiennes, Cheyennes, Chayennes, Sharas, Shawhays, Sharshas, and by the different bands of Dakotas, Shaí-en-a or Shai-é-la. With the Blackfeet, they are the most western branch of the great Algonkin family. When first known, they were living on the Chayenne or Cayenne River, a branch of the Red River of the North, but were driven west of the Mississippi by the Sioux, and about the close of the last century still farther west across the Missouri, where they were found by those enterprising travelers Lewis and Clark in 1803. On their map attached to their report they locate them near the eastern face of the Black Hills, in the valley of the great Sheyenne River, and state their number at 1,500 souls." Their first treaty with the United States was made in 1825, at the mouth of the Teton River. They were then at peace with the Dakotas, but warring against the Pawnees and others. Were then estimated, by Drake, to number 3,250.

     During the time of Long's expedition to the Rocky Mountains, in 1819 and 1820, a small portion of the Cheyennes seem to have separated themselves from the rest of their nation on the Missouri, and to have associated themselves with the Arapahoes who wandered about the tributaries of the Platte and Arkansas, while those who remained affiliated with the Ogalallas, these two divisions remaining separated until the present time. Steps are now being taken, however, to bring them together on a new reservation in the Indian Territory.

    Up to 1862, they were generally friendly to the white settlers, when outbreaks occurred, and then for three or four years a costly and bloody war was carried on against them, a notable feature of which was the Sand Creek or Chivington massacre, November 29, 1864. "Since that time there has been constant trouble. * * * In '67, General Hancock burned the village of the Dog Soldiers, on Pawnee Fork, and another war began, in which General Custer defeated them at Washita, killing Black Kettle and 37 others." The northern bands have been generally at peace with the whites, resisting many overtures to join their southern brethren.

Cheyenne Indian Chief Three Fingers

Young Cheyenne Indian Woman

Cheyenne Indians Destroying a Railroad

Captured Cheyenne Indians

Cheyenne Indian Woman Drying Meat

Cheyenne Indian Photo

Cheyenne Indian Warrior

Cheyenne Indian Tree Burials

Cheyenne Indian Tipi or House

Cheyenne Indian Summer Camp

Cheyenne Indian Pow Wow

About the Native American Indian Tribes Of The Northwest Coast.

About the Native American Indian Tribes Of The Northwest Coast.

A long and narrow strip of land stretches from Vancouver Island northward to Alaska. It is bounded on the east by the great mountains, on the west by the Pacific Ocean. Its coast line is irregular; narrow fiords run far into the land. The climate is generally temperate, but there is much rain. Dense forests of pine, cedar, hemlock, and maple cover the mountain slopes. Many kinds of berries grow there abundantly, supplying food for man. In the mountain forests are deer, elk, caribou; both black and grizzly bears are found; wolves are not uncommon. In the remoter mountains are mountain sheep and mountain goats. Beaver and otter swim in the fresh waters, while the seal, fur seal, sea-lion, and whale are found in the sea. In the waters are also many fish, such as halibut, cod, salmon, herring, and oolachen; shell-fish are abundant.

In this interesting land are many different tribes of Indians, speaking languages which in some cases are very unlike. Among the more important tribes or group of tribes, are the Tlingit, Haida, Tshimpshian, and Kwakiutl. While all these tribes are plainly Indians, there are many persons among them who are light-skinned and brown-haired. The hair is also at times quite wavy. The forms are good and the faces pleasing.

But these Indians are not always satisfied with the forms and faces nature gives them. They have various fashions which change their appearance. Among these is changing the shape of the head. Formerly the Chinooks, living near the Columbia River, changed the shape of all the baby boys' heads. The bones of the head in a little baby are soft and can be pressed out of shape. As the child grows older, the bones become harder and cannot be easily altered. The Chinooks made the little head wedge-shaped in a side view. This was done by a board, which was hinged to the cradle-board, and brought down upon the little boy's forehead. It forced the head to broaden in front and the forehead to slant sharply. After the pressure had been kept on for some months, the shape of the head was fixed for life. From the strange shape of their heads thus produced, the Chinooks were often called“Flat-heads.” On Vancouver Island the head of the Koskimo baby girl was forced by circular bandages wrapped around it to grow long and cylindrical.

Chinook Baby in Cradle. (From Mason.)

Another fashion among the women of some tribes was the piercing of the lower lip for the wearing of a plug as an ornament. Thus, when a little girl among the Haida was twelve or thirteen years old, her aunt or grandmother took her to some quiet place along the seashore; there she pierced a little hole in the lower lip of the child, using a bit of sharp shell or stone. To keep the hole from closing when it healed, a bit of grass stalk was put into it. For a few days the place was sore, but it soon got well. The bit of stalk was then removed, and a little peg of wood put in. Later a larger peg or plug was inserted. When the girl had grown to be an old woman, she wore a large plug in her lower lip, which would hold it out flat almost like a shelf.

Tattooing on a Haida Man. (From Mallery.)

Many of the Northwest Coast tribes tattooed; generally the men were more marked with this than women. The patterns were usually animal figures, showing the man's family. The Haida were fond of having these queer pictures pricked into them. Upon their breasts they had the totem animal; on their arms other suitable patterns.

Gold Chief's House. Queen Charlotte's Island. (From Photograph.)

The villages of these tribes are almost always on the seashore. The houses were generally in one long line, and all faced the sea. The houses of the different tribes differed somewhat. The house of the Haida was almost square, measuring perhaps forty or fifty feet on a side. In olden times they were sunk several feet into the 
ground. On entering the house the visitor found himself upon a platform several feet wide running around the four sides; from it he stepped down upon a second platform, and from it upon a central square of dirt which contained the fireplace. The eating place was around this hearth; the place for lounging, visiting, and sleeping was on the upper platform. There each person of the household had his or her own place. At its rear edge, near the wall, were boxes containing the person's treasures and the household's food. There was but one doorway and no windows in a Haida house. Outside the house, at the middle of the front, stood a curious, great, carved post of wood. These were covered with queer animal and bird patterns, each with some meaning  In Haida houses the doorway was cut in the lower part of this great post or pole.

The beach in front of the village used to be covered with canoes dragged up on the sand. These canoes were “dugouts” of single tree trunks. The logs were cut in summer time, the best wood being yellow cedar. The chief tool used was the adze, made of stone or shell. Fire was used to char the wood to be cut away. After it had been partly cut out inside it was stretched or shaped by steaming with water and hot stones, and then putting in stretchers. Sometimes single-log canoes were large enough to carry from thirty to sixty people. They were often carved and painted at the ends. The paddles used in driving these canoes were rather slender and long-bladed, often painted with designs.

The present dress of these Indians is largely the same as our own. In the days of the first voyagers, they wore beautiful garments of native manufacture. They had quantities of fine furs of seals and sea-otters. These were worn as blankets; when not in use they were carefully folded and laid away in boxes. They wore close and fine blankets of the wool of the mountain sheep and the hair of the mountain goat. These were closely woven and had a fine long fringe along the lower border. They were covered with patterns representing the totem animals. The blanket itself was a dirty white in color, but
the designs were worked in black, yellow, or brown. Further south, among the Tshimpshian Indians of British Columbia, fine blankets were woven of the soft and flexible inner bark of the cedar; these were bordered with strips of fur.

Blanket: Chilcat Indians, Alaska. (From Niblack.)

These Indians still wear the ancient hat. Among the southern tribes it is made of cedar bark, and is soft and flimsy. In the north it is made of spruce or other roots, and is firm and unyielding. The shape of the lower part of the hat is a truncated cone. Among the Tlingit and Haida this is surmounted by a curious, tall cylinder, which is divided into several joints, or segments, called skil. The number of these shows the importance of the wearer.

Halibut Hooks of Wood. (From Originals in Peabody Museum.)

The food of these tribes came largely from the sea. Fish were speared, trapped, and caught with hook and line. For halibut, queer, large, wooden hooks were used. When the fish had been drawn to the surface, they were killed with wooden clubs. Both hooks and clubs were curiously carved. Flesh of larger fishes, like halibut and salmon, was dried in the sun or over fire, and packed away. Clams were dried and strung on sticks. Seaweed was dried and pressed into great, square flat cakes; so were berries and scraped cedar bark. The people were fond of oil, and got it from many different fish. The most prized was that of the oolachen or candle-fish. This fish is so greasy that when put into a frying-pan, there is soon nothing left but some bones and scales floating about in the grease! To get this oil, the little fish were thrown into a canoe full of water. This was heated with stones made very hot in a fire, and then dropped into it. The heat drove out the oil, which floated on the top and was skimmed off
and put into natural bottles—tubes of hollow seaweed stalk. At all meals a dish of oil stood in the midst of the party, and bits of dried fish, seaweed cake, or dried bark were dipped into it before being eaten.

Apache Indian Color Photos and Prints Depicting Their Life, History and Culture.

Apache Indian Color Photos and Prints Depicting Their Life, History and Culture.


Apache Native American Indian Tribe in Color

Apache Indian colorized print of Buffalo Calf

Apache Indian Village in Texas

Apache Indian women drying corn in Texas.

Apache Indians performing the Devil Dance.

Photo from the 1950s of Apache Indians performing the Devil Dance

Southwest Apache Indian warrior

Apache Indian baby

Western Native American Indian Houses

Western Native American Indian Houses

Mesquite Indian house

Apache Indian house

Apache Mojave Indian house

Pima Indian house

Yuma Indian house

Mojave Indian house under construction.