Cattail mats were an important architectural innovation used by many Native American cultures throughout the Eastern Woodlands.  From the Algonquins of the East Coast west to the Mississippi River and north to the Canadian Shield, cattail roofing provided a house covering which was prized for it’s qualities of being light weight, easily portable and highly insulating.  In the Great lakes Region, cattail mats had two primary uses; serving as the walls and roof for winter homes and providing a portable house covering when a family or group was traveling.  

      During the summer months Great Lakes Indian families traditionally occupied domed shaped or gabled roofed homes, constructed with a sapling frame, and covered in panels of birch, elm, ash or cedar bark.  Though bark covered wigwams were durable and shed rain well, the single solid layer of bark had very little insulating value to hold warm air or keep cold air from seeping in.   As the cold months arrived, families often relocated to smaller family hunting camps where they covered their domed shaped wigwams with two to three layers of thick cattail mats.  Often additional insulation was added to the house as well by hanging decorative bullrush mats around the lower four feet of the interior walls, creating an extra area of dead air space.  As an average winter house was covered in two layers of mats, and a set of mats typically lasted for two years, one new set of mats or layer was made each year.  It appears that it was common practice to place the new set of mats as the inner layer and the older set above, as it was exposed to the elements.

     There is some regional variation in the use of mats as winter house covering in comparing practices in the Northern Great Lakes Lakes versus the Southern Great Lakes.  Groups occupying the Northern portion of the region tended to cover the upper roof portion of their winter wigwams with birch bark roofing rolls, using cattail mats on only the sides or lower wall portion of the house.  The groups occupying the areas south of birch habitat tended to cover the entire winter house with only cattail mats.

      The portability and light weight of cattail mats allowed families to roll them up, packing their possessions inside of them.  In this way the mat house was an efficient structure for camping in while traveling.  When a family stopped to camp, framing poles were cut on site and lashed together to form a domed or conical frame.  The mats were unrolled and secured to the structure with basswood bark cord.

      The following slideshow follows the process of constructing a mat house.  The photos were taken over the course of a few years during work on two houses built for interpretive sites.