So what's wrong with this image? Let us begin with the basic cover, canvas. This material was not readily avalable to the Native people of the plains until the mid-1800's - slightly past the Fur Trade Era. Fur trappers and traders would have therefore never seen a bright white, canvas tipi. Buffalo, possibly even elk or moose in the north country, but never canvas.
A second point is the size of a modern tipi. While it is common for today's historical reenactor to own a 20'+ tipi, which, on average houses only about four souls, historically, tipis were nearly 1/3 the size of their contemporary counterparts (while sleeping nearly twice as many people). Remember, that a 15' diameter tipi required nearly 12-15 hand-tanned, and sewn buffalo hides - that is a lot of work, even for a modest-sized tipi!
(Notice the scale of the woman (average of 5' tall) to the tipi (approximately 12'-14') ).
The last point I'd like to make is that while the Plains People are known for being one of the world's greatest "Horse Cultures," by the mid-1800's, many of these tribes hadn't been in contact with horses for more than a single generation. While nearly all of the Plains tribes owned horses, their numbers were nowhere near what they became later, prior to the Indian Wars. It would have been common to own single horse, but it would have been unusual for a trapper or trader to know many Natives who possessed more than a handful of these "Holy Elk."
This image show probably most acurately, what a "typical" Native village would have looked like to an approaching Fur Trapper or Trader furing the Fur Trade Era:
I admit that there are few more beautiful images than a dozen tipis silouetted against a summer sunset, however, again, I must remind myself of the truthful image we - as historical reenactors - are responsibile for presenting. It is a history of what did happened, not what should have, or might of happened.
