Hogan

A hogan is the primary traditional home of the Navajo people

Navajo people

The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...

. Other traditional structures include the summer shelter, the underground home, and the sweat house. It is usually round and cone shaped, but now they make them square, with the door facing east to welcome the rising sun for good wealth and fortune.

Importance and Uses

The hogan is considered sacred to those who practice the Navajo religion way of life. The religious song "The Blessingway" describes the first hogan as being built by Coyote

Coyote (mythology)

Coyote is a mythological character common to many Native American cultures, based on the coyote animal. This character is usually male and is generally anthropomorphic although he may have some coyote-like physical features such as fur, pointed ears, yellow eyes, a tail and claws...

 with help from beavers to be a house for First Man, First Woman, and Talking God. The Beaver People gave Coyote logs and instructions on how to build the first hogan, now known as a "forked stick" or "male" hogan; which resembles a pyramid with five triangular faces. Earth ma fill the spaces between the framework logs, hiding the five faceted shape and creating thick, winter-protective walls. The "forked stick" or "male" Hogan contains a vestibule in the front and was used only for sacred or private ceremonies.

The "circular" or "female" Hogan , the family home for the Navajo people, is much larger and does not contain a vestibule

Vestibule (architecture)

A vestibule is a lobby, entrance hall, or passage between the entrance and the interior of a building.The same term can apply to structures in modern or ancient roman architecture. In modern architecture vestibule typically refers to a small room or hall between an entrance and the interior of...

. In it, the children play, the women cook, weave, talk, and entertain and men tell jokes and stories. Navajos made their hogans in this fashion until the 1900s, when they started to make them in hexagonal and octagonal shapes. The change in shape may have been due to the arrival of the railroad. A supply of wooden cross-ties, which could be laid horizontally to form walls of a larger, taller home, allowed the retention of the "female" hogan shape but with more interior room. The doorways of the hogans always face east.

Many cultural taboo

Taboo

A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...

s are associated with the hogan and its use. Should a death occur in the structure, the body is either buried in the hogan with the entry sealed to warn others away, or the deceased is extracted through a hole knocked in the north side of the structure and it is abandoned and often burned. A hogan may also become taboo for further use if lightning strikes near the structure or a bear rubs against it. Wood from such structures is never reused for any other purpose by a Navajo.

Today, while some older hogans are still used as dwellings and others are maintained for ceremonial purposes, new hogans are rarely intended as family dwellings.

Traditional structured hogan is also considered a pioneer energy efficient home. Using packed mud against the entire wood structure, the home was kept cooled by natural air ventilation and water sprinkled on the dirt ground inside. During the winter, the fireplace kept the inside warm for a long period of time and into the night. This concept is called Thermal Mass

Thermal mass

Thermal mass is a concept in building design which describes how the mass of the building provides "inertia" against temperature fluctuations, sometimes known as the thermal flywheel effect...

.

'Hogan' in different languages

These terms are possible Native American sources of the current term hogan: in Navajo

Navajo language

Navajo or Navaho is an Athabaskan language spoken in the southwestern United States. It is geographically and linguistically one of the Southern Athabaskan languages .Navajo has more speakers than any other Native American language north of the...

• gowąh in Western Apache
  Western Apache language
  The Western Apache language is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by over 12,000 of the Western Apache peoples living primarily in east central Arizona...
  
  
• guughą or kuughą in Chiricahua
  Chiricahua language
  Mescalero-Chiricahua is a Southern Athabaskan language spoken by the Mescalero and Chiricahua tribes in Oklahoma and New Mexico. It is related to Navajo and Western Apache. Mescalero-Chiricahua has been described in great detail by the anthropological linguist Harry Hoijer , especially in Hoijer &...