How to Build a Tipi Model
- 1). Cut a tortilla in half and lay it on a table.
- 2). Paint traditional Native American symbols on the tortilla with water colors. Native Americans believed everyone was assigned an animal when born and would paint their animal on their tipi. Decorate your tipi with the animal that is assigned to you. Other popular symbols included the sun, which was very important to Native Americans because it provided them warmth and light and grew their crops, and animal tracks. Native Americans believed animal tracks were left by the animal's spirit as prints on their lives. Some prints to include on your tipi are bear, bobcat or fox prints. Allow the paint on your tipi to dry for an hour.
- 3). Hold the four wooden skewers together at the top of the tortilla tipi.
- 4). Fold the half of the tortilla into a cone shape around the skewers to form the tipi.
- 5). Secure the tortilla together by threading three toothpicks horizontally, one on top of the other, through the tortilla to keep the cone closed.
- 6). Poke the bottom of the wooden skewers through the bottom of the tortilla to stabilize the tipi.
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