The typical dwelling of the American Indian was the tepee. This was a cone-shaped tent usually made a animal skins stretched over a strong wooden framework based on a three- or four-pole foundation supporting other poles. A hole was left at the top of the tepee to let the smoke out. During the summer hunt tepees were pitched in a large circle, each family in its allotted place.

Another type of Indian house was the wigwam, a kind of domed hut with a frame of flexible poles covered in skins, mats or bark, which was not as comfortable as a tepee and was usually erected in the hunting grounds. The shape of the wigwam varied according to the region.

The tents and implements of the Indians were made in such a way that they could be carried from place to place easily as the tribe went on its wanderings.

The American Indians used to pass on news from one tribe to another over great distances by using smoke clouds. This system was developed as a result of the vastness of the prairie, the flatness of which also helped to make the smoke visible from far off. There was a code of signals which consisted of a combination of long and short puffs of smoke. But smoke clouds were not the only means of communication among the American Indians. Sometimes they used lights flashed from mirrors reflecting the Sun. The Indians also had a system of writing using ideographs or pictures that resembled the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Sound did not play a major part in the Indian system of communication as it did in the tom-tom system of drumming in Africa. The Indians, however, imitated animal sounds at night to recognize friend from foe.

Zimbabwe, meaning ‘stone house’ refers to a huge collection of ruins of extremely ancient stone buildings. These buildings were situated at the top of a granite hill that rose some 100 meters above the wild plain north of the river Limpopo which flows between Zimbabwe and South Africa. The ruins were discovered by chance by an American hunter who had heard missionaries talk about them. The German ‘anthropologist Carl Mauch was the first man to write about the ruins after organizing and expedition in 1871. Mauch worked on the account given to him by an African chief in a German mission.

When Mauch was abandoned by his porters he was helped by the Karanga tribe and as a guest of these people he was able to explore the region. He was able to explore the region. He was convinced when he saw the colossal stone buildings and listened to all the old local legends that he had found the realm of the Queen of Sheba, which provided the gold for the temple of Solomon. Rumours soon spread that a great treasure lay hidden at Zimbabwe and much clandestine digging damaged the site before the authorities could act to stop it.

The majority of the objects excavated were locally made: pottery, iron tools and weapons, gold objects and carvings of human figures, birds and bowls in a local stone. A number of imported goods were also found including many varieties of glass beads.

Today we know that Zimbabwe was inhabited around 1000 B.C. and was only one of about 200 such centers scattered through the country called Zimbabwe.