DCHP-1 Online

wigwam ((n.)) † < Algonk.; cf. Abenaki wīkwām, Ojibwa wīkuwān dwelling, lodge

• 1a n. a kind of dwelling used by Indians from Manitoba to the Atlantic Provinces, characterized by an arched or conical structure of poles covered with hides, bark, rush mats, etc.

  See also: lodge (def. 2a)  skin tent  wickiup  

  • 1770  (1792)  There we found another whigwam which we concluded had been lately inhabited, as we saw the fresh footmarks of the Indians on the sand.
  • 1890  The Ojebways, Wood Crees and other Bush Indians live in wigwams, the framework made with sticks, with either conical or dome-shaped roofs, covered with long sheets of birch bark sewn together with fibres, and laid on diagonally.
  • 1965  When autumn leaves turned red and brown the Micmacs set up their winter wigwams. . . .

• 1b n. a conical tent in which poles spread at the ground and joined at the top are covered with buffalo hide (originally), canvas, etc., used primarily by the Plains Indians.

  See also: teepee  

  • 1875  (1888)  Here I met with a deeply interesting people, the Plain Stoney; they had seventy leather wigwams.
  • 1927  The fenceless West, the figured wigwams, the last wide freedom of that land when it was a community of antelope and Indians and the Police were ten years old, can never be quite lost till Russell's pictures fade.
  • 1965  Before the white man came to Canada, the Indians had no written language beyond the symbols on their totem poles and the sign-and-picture drawings that decorated their wigwams.

• 1c n. a tent of skins, used as a summer dwelling.

  See also: tupek  

  • 1861  Our next halt was at an Esquimaux wigwam.

• 2 n. a temporary dwelling built by white men in the bush.

  See also: camp (def. 1a)  tent (def. 1)  

  • 1771  (1935)  The Canadians had 3 wigwaums here in different places all of which appeared to be made in the winter or spring.
  • 1829  To know them [shantymen], we must visit their wigwams afar in the depth of the forest. . . .
  • 1849  [On the ridge-pole] rested at an angle of 45 degrees other poles, and on them were carefully disposed "hemlock feathers," or small branches of the hemlock-pine, broken off and laid like thatch on the sloaping roof of our wigwam. . . .
  • 1939  . . . he searched for and found half-rotten poles and planks; and, by leaning them together, he built a cone- shaped shelter in which they squatted. . . . The warmth of this wigwam seemed all the more welcome because of its contrast to the weeping wetness of nature outside.

• 3 n. Figurative or transferred uses

  • 1836  Also, the Bills which originated in the Legislative Council, and were sent down to the Assembly, caused no little sensation in the Life Legislative Wigwam.
  • 1844  "I mean, Miss, that if he don't like company so near him, he must shift and build his wigwam further off."
  • 1846  Another Gaol will necesarily have to be built to replace the old wigwam, now in a state of delapidation.
  • 1912  We'd build her a stand-up wigwam of firewood, so it wouldn't be lost in the snow, we'd tote her grub from the fort, the loads of fish, and the fall salmon.
  • 1956  [I had] a wigwam of blanket over the electric lamp . . . lest my grandmother see the glint beneath the door.