Before Christopher Columbus' discovery of the "New World," Native Americans living in Nebraska lived in villages made up of small numbers of earthlodges, usually square in shape. Large wooden posts were placed upright in the ground and supported a framework of smaller logs. Then this was covered with grass and earth which provided shelter from the weather.
Nebraska Indian tribes such as the Pawnee, Oto, Ponca, and Omaha (at left) also lived in earthlodges that were round in shape and made of the same raw materials as earlier earthlodges. As many as 30 people might live in one house. By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Pawnee were living in circular earthlodges, in large villages, which might include more than a thousand people.
Native Americans in central and western Nebraska lived mainly in tepees. It required little wood and its hide covering made it portable. Tribes in eastern Nebraska had more trees available and used them in earthlodges and wigwams.
Tribes using tepees could move their house wherever and whenever they wanted. Their ponies dragged the poles which served as the framework of the tepee. Bison skins which covered the poles could be folded up and hauled by horses, too. Even the tribes which usually lived in earthlodges took advantage of this great invention. They used tepees during long journeys.
Click this button to print this page of the story.
Native Americans & Settlers
