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Hilger on the tipi

Originally published in 1951 by the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology as Bulletin 146. Here, Hilger references Diamond Jenness, The Ojibway Indians of Parry Island, their social and religious life. Nat. Mus. Canada Bull. 78, Anthrop. Ser. No. 17 (1935).
A tipi consisted of a conical-shaped framework of saplings covered with overlapping layers of birchbark. The bark was held in position by being tied to the saplings with basswood fiber and weighted down with leaning poles. [Diamond] Jenness found Parry Islanders had "no recollection of the earlier use of dome-shaped wigwams covered with birchbark or rushes" but they remembered the peaked lodge "with A-shaped ends and ridgepole," and the conical or tipi form. A Red Lake informant remarked: "Every Chippewa woman had to learn to build a wigwam in the old days; it was part of the training her mother gave her. None, however, knew how to build a tipi except those that lived near the Sioux." Canvas-covered tipis were seen on several reservations and were being used for storage or for sleeping purposes. Originally the had been used in pow-wow demonstrations (Indian dances given for commercial purposes).
from
Sister M. Inez Hilger, Chippewa Child Life and Its Cultural Background (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992) 141.

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