Expedition to the Ancestors. What it costs us to build a house
The exterior of the model of a Haida Indian house, made by the author
Here is the house,
Which was built by Jack.
And this is wheat,
Which is kept in a dark closet,
In home,
Which was built by Jack. S. Marshak "The House That Jack Built"
Which was built by Jack.
And this is wheat,
Which is kept in a dark closet,
In home,
Which was built by Jack. S. Marshak "The House That Jack Built"
History with their own hands. So far, in the articles of this series, we have been talking mainly about the culture of the peoples of Eurasia, including the peculiarities of their settlements in ancient times. But here's what's interesting: in the vast expanses of North America, you can also find almost any climatic conditions - from permafrost and snow in the north to the hot deserts of the southwest.
And so, having settled across the continent, the Native Americans began to build their own dwellings from the materials that were at hand and accessible to them, and most importantly, they corresponded to the climate and natural features of the area where they lived. In this regard, the same Eurasia, perhaps, can even envy the richness of their dwelling samples.
Moreover, these different dwellings were built and inhabited by people belonging to the same Americanoid race, with the exception of the Eskimos and Aleuts. Although recent genetic studies have shown that America was inhabited in ancient times by two groups of settlers.
The first came from Siberia and consisted of representatives of haplogroup Q, i.e. these were the ancient Siberian peoples of the Kets and Selkups.
The second, haplogroup C, came from Manchuria and Mongolia, meaning its descendants are directly related to the inhabitants of Mongolia. In any case, they then interbred to a significant degree.
But their homes turned out to be different, and the reason for this was not at all in their historical roots, but in the natural-geographical factor of residence.
This is what Haida villages usually look like: a row of houses along the seashore. The stages of building such a house…
Thus, the ancient subarctic peoples, who roamed the outskirts of the taiga, built simple huts from branches and tree bark.
A wikiup is a cone-shaped shelter made of wooden poles covered with grass and reeds. Such shelters were popular among many tribes in the Great Basin region.
Igloos, well known from Jack London's story "The Tale of Keesh," were built from blocks of tightly packed snow. In the Arctic, they served as temporary shelters during the seal and walrus hunting season. But somewhere, they were also inhabited permanently.
Reed huts... Well, how could we do without them?! These dwellings were built like this: a frame was constructed from poles, then it was covered with mats woven from reeds. A fireplace was built in the middle of the hut. The smoke came out through a hole above it. Similar houses were built by the Indians of California and the Southwest.
The Navajos built something similar. Their dwelling was called a hogan and had the shape of a hexagon or octagon made of poles. However, its walls were lined with stones and coated with clay. The entrance to the hogan always faced east. The Navajos also built dugouts: they installed poles in a cone and covered it with earth. The earth grew grass, and a green pointed hillock was formed!
Again, everyone knows that the dwelling of the North American Indians was called a wigwam. However, this is not the wigwam that people usually imagine. The wigwam was the dwelling of the Algonquin Indians, who lived in the Great Lakes region. They created an arched vault from bent rods, which they then covered, again, with woven mats.
But what many call a wigwam is in fact nothing more than a tipi – the dwelling of the prairie Indians. The ideal dwelling for nomads, as were the tribes that lived there. The structure is a cone of poles covered with bison skins in two layers: one external and one internal. Thanks to this, the tipi was warm even in the cold winter. In addition, it could be easily disassembled and assembled.
Chiki - a floor on piles under a conical reed roof - this is the dwelling of the ancient tribes of the south-east. Moreover, it is known that a village of such houses was even surrounded by a fence.
The Pueblo Indians, the inhabitants of the southwest, built their houses from clay and stones. They were given this name by the Spanish, who reached them in the 16th century. Seeing the Pueblo settlements of closely packed houses, they called them "pueblo", which means "village".
In the forest zone along the shores of the Great Lakes, powerful and highly developed tribes of the northwest, living among fertile forest valleys and on the outskirts of the prairies, built so-called "long houses". They erected them from timber and covered them with bark. Each such house was designed for approximately 20 (!) related families.
It is interesting that the Iroquois “long houses” at one time greatly interested F. Engels, who mentioned them in his work “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State”.
By the way, the Iroquois' self-designation translates precisely as "people of the long houses."
The longhouse was 6–10 m wide and up to 8 m high; its length depended on the number of fireplaces; the longest of the known dwellings reached 90 m. The house had a quadrangular shape. Its base consisted of parallel logs driven into the ground.
This is how the Haida built their houses in 1888. Drawing from the Smithsonian Institution collection.
However, the most beautiful houses were built by the Indians of the Northwest Coastal Region - the Haida and the Tlingit.
The houses were like long plank barns, constructed of hand-sawn planks then fixed to a frame of logs. The entrance was usually at the base of a totem pole, and was always shorter than a man's height, so that anyone entering had to bow to it.
The front wall of the house was often painted with characteristic Haida patterns. The carved totem pole was also painted in bright colors. Up to six families, related by kinship through the female line, could live in such a house.
The total living space of the family was about 15 square meters. In the center there was a depression where the fire burned and food was cooked. The smoke came out through a hole in the roof, which could be closed at night.
Around the fire pit bunks were arranged for sleeping. The higher the position of the family in the clan, the further from the entrance it was located, because, although it was covered with skins, it still let through a little, but a draft.
The totem pole could have been a real work of art!
Several previous articles have already covered the culture of the Haida Indians. And so, as part of a project to create visual aids for history and geography lessons at school, it was decided to make a model of such a dwelling of the Haida Indians.
Model of a Haida house from a museum in Brooklyn
Building such a house – whether it’s a toy or a model for a school history classroom – won’t be difficult.
The material for its production is the most democratic: cardboard from packaging from the Magnit store, coffee stirrers 180x6x1,8 mm, but in principle any that you can buy or order will do.
The "Haida house" also needs supporting posts and pillars for the frame and to support the roof. For these, you need to go to the Leonardo store, where they sell peeled wooden branches of different thicknesses, or to the pine forest, where they lie for free among the pine needles, or ... to the seashore, where there is sand and dunes. There, in the sand, they are also found, dried by the sun and processed by the sea. But those that are waiting for you in the forest are just as good! For the frame of the house, you will need only four such posts no more than 10 cm high, so you will not need much material.
Painting on the front wall of a Haida house that exists today
First of all, you will need to glue the frame of the house from packing cardboard, and you need to do it with the corners cut with a sharp knife, because you will need to glue wooden posts into these corners.
Having glued the pillars, you can begin to cover the frame of the house with sticks-mixers. You can glue them with PVA and "Moment" glue, pressing them to the walls with clothespins for better adhesion.
After the walls, the roof boards are glued on, in the center of which a smoke hole is cut, to which a wooden cover will need to be glued.
A totem pole can be cut from a block of soft wood, such as linden. But you can also mold it from plasticine, cover it with a layer of superglue and, after freezing it in the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, fill it with heated paraffin, which, by the way, was described in one of the previous materials about the culture of the Haida Indians.
The oiled and well-frozen totem pole, after the paraffin has cooled, is easily removed from the mold, after which epoxy resin mixed with sawdust or gypsum is poured into it. The hardened casting is processed with sandpaper, washed from the remains of the lubricant and painted with acrylic paints.
The house itself is covered with wood stain or rosewood varnish to achieve a dark cedar wood shade. For weight, the roof is covered with rocks molded from plastic and tree branches - thin dry twigs that are glued with superglue.
Model of a Haida house on the podium. Work and photo by the author/size]
As for my model of the Haida house, it is installed on a round polystyrene podium, onto which the signature green grass and bushes are glued, and logs are stacked along the walls... for firewood.
Of course, the most beautiful thing in this house is the painting of the front wall. Naturally, it was impossible for me to do it by hand. Therefore, I ordered a decal for it based on a photo of a real Haida house, fortunately, there are now a lot of companies that make custom decals. So they made me such a decal, after which I transferred it to the place and installed the model of the house on the podium.
The model, thanks to the painting of the front wall and the brightly colored totem pole, turned out to be very decorative and exotic. And now it has replenished the collection of visual aids of Penza Gymnasium No. 6.
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