The Ethnomathematics of The Sioux Tipi and Cone

Abstract

The people inhabiting the plains region of North America were able to construct sophisticated communities, trade routes and communications systems that reached throughout pre-Columbian North and Mesoamerica. The Great Plains, called a sea of grass by early European explorers, is an area encompassing an enormous geographic region stretching east of the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, and from modern day Texas to the sub-arctic region of Southern Canada. When examining the history and cultures of this region, one quickly becomes aware of a completely different way of thinking. This mode contrasts radically with our westernized one, which is dominated by squares and boxes — we live in square rooms and buildings on square blocks; we measure things using square feet or meters. When examining Native American culture, art, and mathematics one comes to see a different pattern. In their language, customs, architecture, religion, and ceremony, it is the circle that is dominant. For the Plains peoples, the circle was imbued with tremendous power and symbolism; it was the symbol of their link with the universe. A look at the literature pertaining to the Plains peoples uncovers a number of archetypal symbols, including the pipe, the buffalo, and the tipi. All of these held a definite power associated with the time, space, people and age they commanded. But what becomes obvious, when looking further, is the unique interconnectedness of it all through the metaphor of the circle. For the purposes of this chapter, we will limit our study to the mathematics of the tipi.