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Wigwam

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.01 sec.
wigwam (wĭg`wäm), dwelling found among the Algonquian of the Eastern woodlands area of the United States. The wigwam was usually conical, arborlike, or domed. Some were small, accommodating a single family; others were large communal dwellings. They were covered with squares of bark, with reed mats, or with thatch. Sometimes the word is incorrectly extended to almost all Native North American dwellings including the earth lodge and sometimes even the tepee and the wickiup.

wickiup

 also called wigwam

indigenous North American dwelling characteristic of peoples living in forested regions. It is constructed of saplings driven into the ground in a circle or oval and tied together at the top, then covered with mats of woven rushes or sewn bark. A typical wickiup was some 15–20 feet (4.5–6 metres) in diameter. By the early 21st century, wickiup had become the preferred term among many Native Americans because wigwam was believed to play into a stereotype.


wigwam
1. any dwelling of the North American Indians, esp one made of bark, rushes, or skins spread over or enclosed by a set of arched poles lashed together
2. a similar structure for children

wigwam
An Indian dwelling in the American Northeast, found in a variety of shapes; commonly, a domed structure having a framework of saplings set into the ground, bent over, and bound together. This framework was covered with a watertight surface of overlapping matting or animal skins. A hole at the top of the wigwam provided an escape for smoke from the firepit below; an opening at the side served as an entrance. Compare with tipi.

Wigwam 

a dwelling of the woodland Indians of North America, the Algonquians. It came into the literature as the name for any Indian dwelling that was dome-shaped, as op-posed to the conical tepee. To erect the wigwam, the Indians drove flexible tree trunks into the ground in a circle or an oval and bent the ends to form an arch. The framework of the wigwam was then covered with branches, bark, and mats.



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When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across; nothing in sight; so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a snug wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things dry.
So he left them, and took his wife and three children, and they journeyed on until they found a spot near to a clear stream, where they began to cut down trees, and to make ready their wigwam.
In the Indian gazettes a wigwam was the symbol of a day's march, and a row of them cut or painted on the bark of a tree signified that so many times they had camped.
 
 
 
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