A wickiup (or wikiup) is domed hut-like dwelling used by the semi-nomadic Native American tribes of the arid regions of the west and southwest North America, such as Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Idaho, California, and northern Mexico.

The term wigwam also refers to a similar domed structure. The difference in usage between wickiup and wigwam is that wickiup refers to the dwellings of peoples mostly in the American Southwest while wigwam refers to the dwellings mostly in the American Northeast. Variation does exist between the terms, however.

Structure

Wickiups are formed with a frame of arched poles, most often wooden, which are covered with some sort of roofing material. Some of the roofing materials used include grass, brush, bark, rushes, mats, reeds, or cloth.

The wickiups are most often only temporary structures although the term is sometimes applied to similar structures that are more permanent. Wickiups usually take longer to build than tipis.

Wickiup In Different Languages

A wickiup is called

• gowąh in Western Apache,
• guughą or kuughą in Chiricahua, and
• hoogan in Navajo.

This Navajo word has been borrowed into English as hogan to refer to the Navajo style wickiup.

Anthropological Description

Below is a description of Chiricahua wickiups recorded by anthropologist Morris Opler:

"The home in which the family lives is made by the women and is ordinarily a circular, dome-shaped brush dwelling, with the floor at ground level. It is seven feet high at the center and approximately eight feet in diameter. To build it, long fresh poles of oak or willow are driven into the ground or placed in holes made with a digging stick. These poles, which form the framework, are arranged at one-foot intervals and are bound together at the top with yucca-leaf strands. Over them a thatching of bundles of big bluestem grass or bear grass is tied, shingle style, with yucca strings. A smoke hole opens above a central fireplace. A hide, suspended at the entrance, is fixed on a cross-beam so that it may be swung forward or backward. The doorway may face in any direction. For waterproofing, pieces of hide are thrown over the outer hatching, and in rainy weather, if a fire is not needed, even the smoke hole is covered. In warm, dry weather much of the outer roofing is stripped off. It takes approximately three days to erect a sturdy dwelling of this type. These houses are 'warm and comfortable, even though there is a big snow.' The interior is lined with brush and grass beds over which robes are spread...."   (Opler: 22-23)

"The woman not only makes the furnishings of the home but is responsible for the construction, maintenance, and repair of the dwelling itself and for the arrangement of everything in it. She provides the grass and brush beds and replaces them when they become too old and dry.... However, formerly 'they had no permanent homes, so they didn't bother with cleaning.' The dome-shaped dwelling or wickiup, the usual home type for all the Chiricahua bands, has already been described.... Said a Central Chiricahua informant:

Both the tepee and the oval-shaped house were used when I was a boy. The oval hut was covered with hide and was the best house. The more well-to-do had this kind. The tepee type was just made of brush. It had a place for a fire in the center. It was just thrown together. Both types were common even before my time....

"A house form that departs from the more common dome-shaped variety is recorded for the Southern Chiricahua as well:

...When we settled down, we used the wickiup; when we were moving around a great deal, we used this other kind..."   (Opler: 385-386)

Links

• Chiricahua wickiup (picture)
• making of a wickiup (including pictures)
• drawing of a wickiup
• Native American homes

• See Also Tipi for another type of Native American dwelling.

References

• Opler, Morris E. (1941). An Apache life-way: The economic, social, and religious institutions of the Chiricahua Indians. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. (Reprinted in 1962, Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1965, New York: Cooper Square Publishers; 1965, Chicago: University of Chicago Press; & 1994, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, ISBN 0-80328610-4).