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wigwam ((n.))†
< Algonk.; cf. Abenaki wīkwām, Ojibwa wīkuwān dwelling, lodge
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
1an.
a kind of dwelling used by Indians from Manitoba to the Atlantic Provinces, characterized by an arched or conical structure of poles covered with hides, bark, rush mats, etc.
Quotations
1770
There we found another whigwam which we concluded had been lately inhabited, as we saw the fresh footmarks of the Indians on the sand.
1890
The Ojebways, Wood Crees and other Bush Indians live in wigwams, the framework made with sticks, with either conical or dome-shaped roofs, covered with long sheets of birch bark sewn together with fibres, and laid on diagonally.
1965
When autumn leaves turned red and brown the Micmacs set up their winter wigwams. . . .
1bn.
a conical tent in which poles spread at the ground and joined at the top are covered with buffalo hide (originally), canvas, etc., used primarily by the Plains Indians.
See: teepee
Quotations
1875
Here I met with a deeply interesting people, the Plain Stoney; they had seventy leather wigwams.
1927
The fenceless West, the figured wigwams, the last wide freedom of that land when it was a community of antelope and Indians and the Police were ten years old, can never be quite lost till Russell's pictures fade.
1965
Before the white man came to Canada, the Indians had no written language beyond the symbols on their totem poles and the sign-and-picture drawings that decorated their wigwams.
1cn.
a tent of skins, used as a summer dwelling.
See: tupek
Quotations
1861
Our next halt was at an Esquimaux wigwam.
2n.
a temporary dwelling built by white men in the bush.
Quotations
1771
The Canadians had 3 wigwaums here in different places all of which appeared to be made in the winter or spring.
1829
To know them [shantymen], we must visit their wigwams afar in the depth of the forest. . . .
1849
[On the ridge-pole] rested at an angle of 45 degrees other poles, and on them were carefully disposed "hemlock feathers," or small branches of the hemlock-pine, broken off and laid like thatch on the sloaping roof of our wigwam. . . .
1939
. . . he searched for and found half-rotten poles and planks; and, by leaning them together, he built a cone- shaped shelter in which they squatted. . . . The warmth of this wigwam seemed all the more welcome because of its contrast to the weeping wetness of nature outside.
3n. — Figurative or transferred uses
Quotations
1836
Also, the Bills which originated in the Legislative Council, and were sent down to the Assembly, caused no little sensation in the Life Legislative Wigwam.
1844
"I mean, Miss, that if he don't like company so near him, he must shift and build his wigwam further off."
1846
Another Gaol will necesarily have to be built to replace the old wigwam, now in a state of delapidation.
1912
We'd build her a stand-up wigwam of firewood, so it wouldn't be lost in the snow, we'd tote her grub from the fort, the loads of fish, and the fall salmon.
1956
[I had] a wigwam of blanket over the electric lamp . . . lest my grandmother see the glint beneath the door.