The Buffalo Hide Tipi of the Sioux

The Buffalo Hide Tipi of the Sioux by Larry Belitz beautifully weaves together historical quotes, photos, illustrations and Larry's immense expertise to teach you about all aspects of the iconic buffalo hide tipi. When Larry started making hide tipis, it was truly a lost art. One that he has rebuilt through museum research and the hard and meticulous work of building 40 of them himself (if you don't tan, just to give you some idea of what this means: a typical 18 ft hide tipi has 14 buffalo hides in it, each of which takes a week worth of very physical work to tan. Then you sew them together, by hand, using sinews from the animal's back, a task usually performed by 10 to 15 people working together).