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Nodinens on winter lodges

From Nodinens, a Mille Lacs elder who described her childhood in the late 1850s or early 1860s.
There were six families in our party, and when we found a nice place in the deep woods we made our winter camp. The men shoveled away the snow to a big space, and the six wigwams were put in a circle and banked with evergreen boughs and snow. Of course, the snow was shoveled away in the inside of the wigwam, and plenty of cedar boughs were spread on the ground and covered with blankets for our beds, the bright yarn bags being set along the wall for use as pillows. In the center was a place for a fire, and between it and the floor mats there was a strip of hard, dry ground that was kept clean by sweeping it with a broom made of cedar boughs. The wigwam looked nice with a yellow birch-bark top and the bright-colored things inside. Outside the door there was a little shed made of cedar bark in which we kept the split wood for the fire, so it would not get wet and so we could get it easily in the night. Sometimes there were many of these sheds around the door of a wigwam. The men brought the logs and the women chopped the wood, and put it in the sheds ready for use.
from
Frances Densmore, Chippewa Customs (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1979), 120.