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Show 1900] INDIAN LIFE 217 To return to the villages- the dwellings of which they consisted naturally varied widely in character both with the environment and with the culture and social organization of the inhabitants. JThe architectural characteristics show many variations and are not distributed with geographical regularity; some of the most characteristic types have been described in the preceding chapters, and we need do nothing more than sum up at this point. \ The most widely distributed Indian houses were undoubtedly the light and not very durable shelters of brush, bark, and skin. <£ hese were sometimes elaborate, like the Iroquois " long houses," or rude and simple, like the " wickiups" of the southern Shoshone. The bark and brush wigwams which are regarded as typical of the eastern tribes were, however, permanent dwellings, and were modified by the buffalo- hunting and rapidly moving Indians of the plains to meet their own conditions. These conditions brought about the device of the tipi already described, 1 which has been adopted so widely in the open country of the west. \ On the border between the eastern and western ^ group one of those curious transitions in type is sometimes seen, such as a wigwam built on tipi lines or a tipi adapted to the woodland life. The eastern Sioux construct a lodge of bark like the Iroquois, but with far less skill and finish. Lodges covered in with woven 1 See above, chap. ix. |
