Indians ate many different kinds of food. Those who lived on the plains of the Central United States ate the meat of buffalo. The Pueblos of the south-western part lived on corn, beans and squash. Indians in Alaska and Canada were fishers and hunted deer and other wild animals in the forests. Most Indians ate berries and collected nuts.Indians cooked their food in ovens that they made with hot stones. They preserved meat by smoking or drying it in the sun.Many Indians made clothes from animal skins and furs. Buffalo skin and rabbit fur were especially popular. They also used bird feathers to decorate their heads.Indians of the tropical regions only wore simple skirts. Some tribes wore no clothes at all.Indians built many different types of homes because they lived in different climates and didn’t have the same building materials. Some groups built large houses with many rooms where many families could stay together, others had small dwellings in which only very few people lived.The Inuit of Canada built snow houses during the winter and in summer they lived in tents made of animal hides.In some parts of America, Indians built wigwams that were covered with leaves. Some tribes built houses into the earth that they covered with leaves and grass.Indians of in the Great Plains built tepees made of buffalo skin. The Pueblo Indians of the south-western part of America used sun-dried bricks to make houses.
