Mary Ostler

Since I found little to no usable information on Bedouin tents, I have decided to make a post on how I set up my tent.

The inital bundle is pretty small compared to my mini yurt.

With the rectangle of fabric spread out on the ground, grab one edge pole and place it under one of the tension strap corners. stretch out the ropes and hammer them down. (Its easier to have some one hold the pole stead, but can be done with one person).

repeat with the other edge.

Once I have all the edge poles in place, repeat with the other side.

I allow for a fair bit of bag at this point. You will need it.

I was going for a North African Bedouin style tent. They have  arched ridge lines, and I can not see how to get that look with out aid of a ridge slat. The more common variety just have poles to keep the top of the roof up.

I place one of the poles hooked into the ridge slat, shrug my way into the tent, and raise the pole up til the two parts are steady, but not tight.

I then place the other pole into the roof slat corner and raise that pole up

Keep moving out the pole until they are vertical. You might have to adjust the tension on the sides to get them to stand straight upright. Once I have them up, I peg down the roof center tension straps.

I built my tent so that the end walls are permanently attached. The side walls are attached to the roof by means of pins (I used curtain hanger prongs, cut and sharpened).

To splay out the walls I pinned the canvas around the guide ropes. This allowed a lot of shade, and air still moved freely through the tent.

Shot of one of the pins.

At night I un-pin the bottom of the walls and the pin the corner canvas edges together.

I have a separate piece of fabric that spans the inside middle of the tent that gets pined to the outside walls. This gives a nice sleeping area with out people walking by watching you sleep.

The pins used to attach the wall segments make great points to attach the tassels.

That’s it. How I set up my Bedouin tent.