Native American Architecture

I

Introduction

Native American Architecture, traditional architecture of the peoples of who lived in North America before Europeans arrived. In traditional Native American culture, the dwelling was far more than a physical shelter or what Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier called “a machine for living.” For many Native Americans the house was a physical and spiritual representation of the universe. This article covers the architecture of indigenous (native) peoples in what is now the United States and Canada. For information on the indigenous architecture of Middle America and South America, see Pre-Columbian Art and Architecture and Native Americans of Middle and South America.

II

Prehistoric Earthwork Architecture

Indigenous peoples lived in North America for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. Their early structures included earth mounds that provided elevated bases for residences of rulers and pedestals for temples and other sacred architecture. The houses or temples, built of wood and often covered with thatched roofs, disappeared hundreds of years ago. Some of the mounded earth constructions remain, although diminished by thousands of years of erosion.

The earliest known enclosures built in North America are rings of mounds constructed in what is now Louisiana and lower Arkansas, from as early as 6,500 years ago to as late as 3,000 years ago. The largest of these structures—built about 5,400 years ago near Monroe, Louisiana—is a group of 11 mounds in an oval ring that measures roughly 200 by 260 m (650 ft by 850 ft). Monumental earth architecture was built by hunter-gatherer cultures in North America nearly 1,000 years before the Great Pyramids in Egypt.

From about 1700 bc to 700 bc, a second major period of mound building flourished, again concentrated along the Mississippi River in northern Louisiana, though its influence extended as far as central Texas, Arkansas, southern Missouri, and Indiana. This period of mound building seems to have had its center in a place today called Poverty Point, near Epps, Louisiana. The Poverty Point culture, responsible for building these mounds, is named after this site. The enormous complex at Poverty Point consists of six low, concentric rings of mounded earth with a large plaza at their center. The largest, outer ring measures about 1,200 m (nearly 4,000 ft) in diameter, and the plaza has a diameter of 181 m (about 595 ft). To the west of the rings stood a large mound, which today rises 20 m (66 ft) in height and extends more than 200 m (660 ft) in length. Nothing on this scale would be built in North America for several more centuries. See also Poverty Point National Monument.

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A later mound-building culture, named Adena, arose in Ohio about 1100 bc and spread to Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New York before it ended about 200 ad. The dome-shaped Adena mounds were used as cemeteries, and rose higher from additional burials over the centuries. Early European and American explorers and settlers failed to appreciate the sacred nature of these burial mounds, and plundered and obliterated thousands of mounds. Other mounds slowly disappeared after generations of farmers repeatedly plowed them.

Another mound building culture, named Hopewell, also appears to have originated in Ohio but expanded west to Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma, south to Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, east to Georgia and the Appalachian Mountains, and north to Wisconsin, Michigan, and lower Ontario in Canada. The Hopewell culture lasted from about 200 bc to 400 ad. Hopewell people built large, linear mounds to create enclosures in geometrical shapes, such as squares, circles, and octagons. Over time the Hopewell mounds extended outward in clusters, rather than upward as the Adena mounds did. The Hopewell mounds are especially significant because many of the forms are aligned with specific stars, solar events, or points on the horizon where the moon rises and sets. Awareness of astronomical cycles appears to have been highly important to the people.

Effigy mounds, built during and after the Adena and Hopewell culture periods, took the form of animals and human beings. The Serpent Mound in southern Ohio has a long wavy body about 382 m (1,254 ft) long and today rises about 1.2 m (4 ft) high. It was built about 1100 AD atop a bluff. The folds in its undulating body align in direction with the solar solstices and equinox.

The final mound-building culture, called Mississippian, flourished in the Mississippi River valley from about 800 ad to the mid-1500s. The mounds in some areas were still in use when Europeans ventured into North America. The mounds had square or rectangular bottoms and sloping sides that rose to broad flat tops or terraces. Residences of nobles or temples topped many of these mounds. Mississippian mounds, unlike the mounds of the Adena and Hopewell cultures, appeared near permanent settlements. Excavations at the largest Mississippian town—at Cahokia, Illinois—suggest that its native population once numbered perhaps 30,000 people and that about 120 mounds once stood there. The town’s central ceremonial plaza measured 5.6 by 3.6 km (3.5 by 2.25 mi), and a large adjacent mound, today called Monks Mound, rose through several terraces to a height of nearly 30 m (100 ft), dominating the countryside for miles around.

III

Traditions that Shaped Native Buildings

Hundreds of individual nations or tribal groups lived in North America when Europeans first ventured onto the continent. Distributed from the Arctic to central Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts, the native population was denser in areas where food was plentiful and thinly dispersed in arid areas where food resources were scarce.

The hundreds of native groups in North America differed in many ways, yet they shared many important traditions. For example, they used local building materials and adapted their housing and way of life to the local climate. In addition, they perceived time as cyclical (occurring in repeated cycles) and planned life around the change of seasons. Many native groups moved their villages several times a year to follow seasonal food sources, in contrast to Europeans, who tended to live in one fixed place year round. Seasonal moves meant less-permanent architecture.

A

Communal Property and Dwellings

Seasonal moves also were linked with the Native American concept of land possession. Total and exclusive land ownership, as European Americans understood it, was simply not a Native American concept. Although a group might have the privilege of using a parcel of land for gathering plants or hunting game, seldom did a tribe or individual “own” a parcel of land. Another practice influencing architecture was that in many native groups extended families lived in communal (shared) structures. In most of these extended families a grandmother, her daughters, their husbands, and the grandchildren lived together. This practice contrasted with European and American preference for the single-family house. The Native American tribe or clan usually held foodstuffs in common so that in difficult times no one starved or was left in need.

Among the nations of the Pacific Northwest Coast, individuals or families conducted so-called potlatch ceremonies in which they gave away everything they had of value. Such ceremonies created bonds of obligation within the community and paid off debts. The people most highly esteemed were those who had given away the most. The concepts of shared property and potlatch contrasted sharply with European American concepts of thrift, saving, and individual self-reliance.

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