How to Make a Plains Tepee
The Native American tribes of North America's Great Plains built tepees (also written as tipis or teepees) for shelter. Although in appearance tepees seem simple enough, they are not easy to construct. Building a tepee requires a large amount of canvas or other material, long poles and rope or other lashing materials. Cutting the holes needed to attach the tepee cover to the frame requires precision, as does positioning the smoke flaps to ensure that your tepee is properly ventilated.
Things You'll Need
- A diagram or design to guide you
- About 15 18-foot poles
- Rope to lash the poles together
- A semicircular cloth 30 feet in diameter
- Extra material for smoke flaps
- Sewing needle and heavy thread
- About two dozen 10-inch pins
- Set of tent stakes
- Round piece of material 3 to 4 feet in diameter for the door
- Flooring material (optional)
Instructions
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1
Erect the frame. Take the three strongest poles, stand them up, and form a tripod with the poles crossing 3 feet below their tops. Lash them together tightly at the intersection. The ground distance between the bases of the poles is not important at this point as long as they are stable.
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2
Set the two lightest poles aside. Take the remaining 10 poles and space them evenly in a circle around the tripod, leaning their tops on the tripod intersection so that a 3-foot-long segment of each pole sticks out at top, just like in Step 1. Once all the poles are in place, lash them together at their intersection.
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3
Now consult a diagram, such as the one available at Shelterpub.com (see Resources). Note that the semicircle of canvas you're using as a tepee cover has to have smoke flaps. Also note that one half of the semicircle's straight edge sticks out about 8 or 10 inches farther than the other half, allowing the edges to overlap when they meet.
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4
Using the extra canvas material, make the smoke flaps. The two flaps are trapezoids that stick out from the center of the straight edge of the material, with their angled tips pointing toward each other and almost touching.
The side of the flap you'll sew onto the canvas semicircle should be 4 feet long. Cut the other three sides to the following dimensions: the side that faces the other flap is 2 1/2 feet long, the side farthest from the center is 1 foot long, and top edge is 5 feet long.
On each flap sew a small triangular piece of material overlapping the corner where the 2 1/2-foot and 5-foot sides meet. You should end up with two small pockets that can fit the remaining poles. Reinforce the stitching on the pockets. -
5
Cut out a 3-foot diameter semicircle on each side of the straight edge of the tepee cover, about 2 feet from either end. When the two sides meet, these will form the round doorway.
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6
Along the remaining straight edges---i.e., not in the door half circles or along the smoke flaps---punch two parallel holes in the canvas approximately every 6 or 8 inches. The holes should be closer together on the longer side, which will fit underneath the shorter side when the tepee covering is raised. Reinforce the holes with grommets.
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7
Raise the tepee covering around the frame. The covering should be conical, with the circular side at the bottom and the narrower part up top at the intersection of the tent poles. The tent flaps should stick out and overlap. Take the pins and insert them through the sets of parallel holes in the now-joined flaps. Put the pin through one hole on the top flap, through the two holes on the bottom flap, and then out the second hole on the top flap.
Pull the tepee cover as taut as possible, then stake the edges into the ground. Go inside and move the bottoms of the poles until the tepee cover is stretched out as far as possible. -
8
Take the two remaining poles and insert them into the pockets in the smoke flaps. The bottoms of the poles can be placed in various positions to move the flaps and take advantage of wind direction to ventilate the tepee.
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9
Make a door from the round piece of material. Hem around the edge of the material leaving enough space to insert a willow stick or other flexible rod (this makes the door stiff). Hang the door, as a flap, over the doorway.
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Tips & Warnings
Cover the floor of the tepee with more material for comfort, but leave a clear space in the center for the fire pit.
References
- Photo Credit
