Traditional Native American Homes

North America is a large continent with lots of different weather conditions. Native Americans built different styles of houses depending on the region. The tribes in the Plains were always moving around. They were following the buffalo herds. They needed houses that could be put up and taken down quickly. Their traditional home was called a tepee. Tepees were tents made with long, strong sticks and animal skins. Families carried their houses with them as they travelled. In the American Northeast, the weather is cold and snowy in winters and warm in summers.

The Iroquois and Algonquian tribes lived there. They didn’t move around like the Plains tribes. They lived in permanent villages and built huge houses called longhouses. They were about 60 metres long, six metres wide, and six metres high. Mats and wooden partitions separated the space into rooms. All members of a family usually lived in one longhouse. The American Southwest is hot and dry. The Pueblo tribes lived there. They were a farming community and lived in pueblo houses. These were made with clay and straw bricks (adobe bricks). The buildings looked like apartment buildings. Entire families lived in the one complex in the many little apartments.