DCHP-1 Online

death teepee Hist.

• 1 a teepee in which those dead from disease were abandoned.

  See also: dead lodge  

  • 1888  A death teepee is a horrible place to enter.

• 2 a teepee erected in honor of a prominent person who has died.

  • 1952  The [Blackfoot] dead were usually deposited in trees or on scaffolds, but sometimes a special death teepee was erected on a prominent hill-top.