Search the dictionary Advanced Search

How to use the Ojibwe People's Dictionary

Hilger on peaked lodge

Originally published in 1951 by the Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology as Bulletin 146.
The peaked lodge consisted of poles so planted as to form two sloping sides, giving the appearance of a high-pitched gabled roof squatting on the ground. The ends of the poles used for forming the sides were held in place by being tied to a horizontal pole at the ridge. Any of the barks used in constructing wigwams served as covering for the sides. Each end served as an entrance; the crossing of the poles provided space for the emission of smoke. Such a lodge usually accommodated three or four families. The only peaked lodge that came to the writer's notice or was known to her informants to exist on any reservation was one in which the Mide'wiwin ceremonial was being held on the Nett Lake Reservation in August 1939.
from
Sister M. Inez Hilger, Chippewa Child Life and Its Cultural Background (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1992) 140-141.