Omaha Dwellings, Furniture and Implements

Posts, rafters, grass and earth become the framework of Omaha homes in James Owen Dorsey's detailed study of shelter and equipment. Drawing on personal investigations among the Omaha of Nebraska and related communities beginning in 1878, he describes earth lodges, bark shelters and skin tents. The account explains how women constructed earth lodges for summer use and how tents could be pitched in wooded ravines for protection from winter winds.

The illustrated paper also examines the objects that furnished homes and supported travel. Its contents include bedding, cradles, vessels, tools and musical instruments. In the middle excerpt, Dorsey describes decorated pipes, wooden saddles wrapped in hide, bridles and ropes plaited from buffalo hair. Names in the Omaha language accompany explanations of construction and use. Readers interested in material culture will find close attention to how particular materials served daily needs, from a roof covering to equipment for handling horses.