�134 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST (n. s., r, 1H99
more recently the rifle), and joined with the Kiowa in the great annual ceremony of the sun dance. Physically they are tall and well made, with bold, alert expression.
Every man and woman of the delegation came dressed in full buckskin, beautifully fringed and beaded. They set up their canvas tipis adjoining the Wichita, inclosing one of them with a circular windbreak of leafy willow branches after the manner of the winter camps of the plains Indians. Suspended from a tripod in front of the same tipi was a genuine, old-time " buffalo shield," the last shield remaining in the tribe. It is now the property of the National Museum.
It may be in place here to describe the tipi, the ordinary dwelling of the plains tribes. The name tipi, " house," is from the Sioux language and has now almost entirely superseded the former term, lodge.
The tipi is a conical structure, formerly of dressed buffalo hides, but now of cow-skins or canvas, sewn together with sinew, over a framework of poles of cedar or other suitable wood, tied together near their tops and spread out at the ground to form a circle of about twenty feet diameter. An average tipi occupied by a family of about six persons has twenty poles in the circle and stands about fifteen feet high to the crossing of the poles. Three — or with some tribes four — particularly stout poles form the main support of the structure. One of these is at one side of the doorway, which always faces the east ; another, to which is usually tied the " medicine-bag " of the owner of the dwelling, is nearly opposite the doorway, while the third is on the north side. These three poles are first tied together about two feet from their upper ends with one end of a long rope, and are then raised in place by the women and firmly planted in the earth. The other poles are next sorted out according to length and leaned against them in such way that when set up the tipi's longest slope will be toward the front. The formula is: three main poles; two sets of five longer poles each, one for each side and extending
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