Do you need a liner in a tipi?

[TWDBear]

Sounds like you had fun there.
I've thought about going there but it depends a lot on how much vacation is used up by the Fall.

I agree that not using the liner makes set up easier. I've been seriously thinking about changing from tying my lower liner ties to the poles to attaching hooks and just running a rope around the base of the poles. I saw this trick at NPW and it does seem to speed set up a lot, especially with the hooks at the top ties as well as on the parfleche bags inside. No tying, just hooking in place and you don't notice the hooks since they're brass in color and blend in quite nicely.

Is your tipi made of a dark cloth or lighter cloth?

Mine is made of white sunforger and without the liner and in the summer sun, mine feels hotter, then again, my cloth is the heavier 13 oz. In the summer heat, i do raise up both the liner and cover with the same forked sticks so the breezes can blow through or catch some cooler air from the shady side of the tipi.

I have my tipi pitched in the backyard now, it's been up for the past week and i suspect will be up for the next week until the next stretch of sunny dry weather.
I lowered my tie points on the N/S poles by about 2 inches and on the E pole by 4 inches so the cover is either just barely touching the grass or is withing an inch of the ground. It does help in keeping the cold air (in the 20's) out and the warmer air in (been burning LP Gas). But with the cold, i've been using the liner and "ozan" to keep the heat in better. Plus my "ozan", i've sewn an extension along the front that can hang down some to keep more heat in or extend out straight to direct more rain onto the grass if needed.

I've had people say they can see shadows at night even with a liner but i've checked mine and all i could see was vague blobs from the top of the liner down, nothing specific.

Linda, when's the new release date of your book?

Tim n'Tennessee

just got back from a week of camping at Disney World. You guys should try this next year???? It will be the 35 year for the Tipis Lodge Owners camping for Thanksgiving.

Set up my lodge with no liner! That created quite a stir. It rained like hell with some flooding Sunday nite and then came the winds and COOL temperatures. I had no problems at all with water, which just ran down the poles and back out or the freezing temperatures. Did get a bit of flack about how you could see "shadows" in my lodge. When it came to take down, what a breeze with no liner to dry or fold.


And a liner does not keep a tipi cooler in the summer. It keeps it warmer.

With the cover ALL the way to the ground, it was like there was a liner.

Oh....remember....the liner is the Ozan and there is no name for the interior water or rain cover nor did they ever really have one, but.we will call it a...RAin Cover.


Linda Holley

[Waccamawson]

Summer Lodge

Twice I lived all summer long in a lodge in Chicora, (south carolina). I used a liner and when hot I would just roll a side of the liner up a foot or two and the wind blowing into the tipi would hit the other wall and shoot up out of the smoke hole. So halfway through the summer someone wanted to pull the liner down because they thought it would help keep them cooler. Didn't work out. They couldn't cook anymore either until they put the liner back up. Can't have a fire inside w/o a liner and can't have one outside when it's raining.

Every one has their own opinion but I would never like to use a lodge without a liner. Think of it this way, when working outside the worst idea is to remove the shirt to keep cool. The sun then can shine on you and heat you up even more! The same is true of the tipi. The liner makes a vent for the wind to pull more air into the tipi. With out the liner you only have cross ventilation and the sun shines harder into your tipi heating the air up more. When the sides are all rolled up, the heat collects overhead without the liner to help the air move. When it rains and you have no liner the rain doesn't travel down the poles as good and drips all over the floor area. You do not want everyone else being able to see right through your tipi at night either.

The liner makes the tipi a lodge. Without the liner you have nothing better than a white man's wall tent. I don't have all the experience in the world but this is the way I have found it to be.

Hey Linda, if you are the same Linda that won the pow wow comp. with your horsegear I would like to say that I find your work VERY inspiring. Please respond to the question about your book. Also are you saying the real word for the liner is ozan and the thing we call an ozan is just the rain fly?

[tipis]

The liner is the Ozan and any cover inside or out to keep water off is just a rain fly or rain cover.

When you set your tipi up, was the cover all the way to the ground when you had the lining pulled up or out of the way? The Indians rarely set up a lodge with a liner durring the summer or most the time. But if your cover is off the ground by even an inch or two, you have to use a liner to get the same effect. It does become a double cover. The liner, as we use it, is a new way of setting up a "tent" since the Luabins started the fitted liner in the 1950s'.

I have been setting up my lodge now without the liner for the past two years and find I do not need it untill it gets real cold and that is even in heavy rain. The water goes down the poles without any problems and back out again. THe liner only keeps it from dripping on my stuff when I have one up. But if I have nothing to make the water drip, no problem. And without the rope liners or attatchments to the poles by all the cloth, no drips again.

Without the liner you have nothing better than a white man's wall tent. I don't have all the experience in the world but this is the way I have found it to be.

My fire draws the same and I am just as comfortable. Just like it was done 100 years ago.

And yes, I am the same person who had the "fabulous" saddle....thank you for the complements....love the priase.
And, we are still in editing on the book...should go to press by February 2006.

[Waccamawson]

Mrs. Holley

Linda,

Yes you do absolutely amazing work. I have a picture of that saddle and some of your other horse gear saved on my 'puter. Any time I decide I would like to try a beaded bridle or something along those lines, I look at your pic's and decide I need a lot more practice first. LOL.

About the tipi liner. I don't know and I am sure that you have MUCH more experience than me but, we just could not get anything to work out right with out our liner. There could be all sorts of reasons why though and if you say you don't need it I believe you. I don't remember a lot about the experience except that the folks in the tipi with the liner had a much more enjoyable time. But where the tipi is set up etc. has a lot to do with how it performs. Also you can be sure that at that time none of us had any experience with tipis other than a little reading and had problems with rain and the smoke flaps etc.

I am looking for a lodge at the moment and am putting back 1 out of every 5 hides I do to make my own hide tipi cover. Wish me luck! (and patience)

Walk Easy

ps: i am sorry about the quote you posted from me. i actually have heard someone say this before and can't claim it. however after re-reading it i can tell you that my white half is very much offended. lol

[tipis]

Do you still live in the Carolinas??? I am going up your way, N Carolina in the future. If you want to meet up and do a little tipi exchanging....let me know. And if you want help on the bridle...let me know.

What kind of hides are you setting aside for the tipi? There is another book coming out in a year or so on hide tipis that you might want to read.....or ask questions about. I have some knowledge in that area. I love to talk tipis......