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THE TEPEE - Part 1

First get a piece of sturdy cloth at least 7 feet by 14 feet. A larger size is all right as long as the length is twice the width. You can even make it by sewing several smaller pieces together. Then cut out a semicircle. From the cutout pieces make two smoke flaps, and sew them on at the spots shown in the illustration. Now bind all the edges of the cloth with heavy linen, or, better yet, with leather. Run a heavy cord around the bottom edge of the tepee, sewing it securely at about 4-inch intervals. Afterwards you will stick the tent pegs through the loops created this way to stretch the sides tight. The tent is not closed with buttons, but with wooden dowels and loops like those on duffle coats.

To set up the tepee, you need about ten poles as shown in the illustration, or, if you like, branches cut as straight as possible.

Draw a circle on the ground with a diameter equal to the radius of the semicircle. Then set up three poles on the circle as shown, and tie them together at the height that the peak of the tent will reach. Lean the other poles against these three, putting three aside: two for propping open the smoke flaps and one to tie the top of the tepee to. By narrowing or widening the opening of the smoke flaps, you will get the "chimney flue" to draw. Naturally the opening must always be on the side away from the wind, for otherwise the smoke would be blown back into the tent. Secure the tepee in a strong wind by letting the cord which holds the poles together at the top extend to the ground, and fasten it there in the middle of the tent. In hot weather you can roll the front of the tepee up, holding it with strong forked sticks, to allow breezes to enter.

Painting the Tepee. Cave dwellers decorated their caves with drawings; the Indians painted their tepees, taking the motifs from their lives: hunting and war. They also drew their totem figures, the sun and the moon, and animals. You can decorate your tepee in the same way.

The Design. Designing consists of first making a drawing of, for example, an animal you are going to paint and then simplifying your sketch. If you are drawing a lion, first make a realistic sketch, then reduce it as far as possible to simple single lines, and finally intensify and stylize those lines.

In the same way, if you wish to paint an elk, first draw it. For your tepee decoration you don't need any perspective, so you can simplify the antlers and place the legs decoratively. Then further simplify all the forms, exaggerating those parts of the elk that are typical and distinctive. And you finish with a decorative pattern for painting.

Another method is pure stylization. In the illustration, the "photographic" image of an eagle is intensely simplified and the typical elements are completely exaggerated, but the bird is still recognizable as an eagle.

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