Charles Stewart Smith Memorial Fund

Pair of hide moccasins with a strip of beaded decoration down the front in blue, yellow, red, green and pink. Strips of hide tie the front and are fastened. The soles are painted with red, blue and green decorations. Somewhat worn.Part of material purchased as belonging to Red Cloud.

Object is a pair of moccasins, the fronts of which have blue, red-brown, and white beads. Cuffs are red wool; rawhide ties are natural. Very fine pair: spot stitch, side seam. Probably Plains Cree from Rocky Boy Reservation, which is nearby Glacier National Park, Montana, where these were collected.

This Yakama dress was part of the Louis Comfort Tiffany art collection exhibited in a special Native American gallery in Laurelton Hall, his Long Island home. Tiffany was especially interested in collecting Native American baskets, totem poles, pottery, and dresses from peoples of the Plains and Northwest Coast regions. The elaborate bodice, although heavy, belies its bulk with the gracefulness of the shoulders and the wing forms for the sleeves. The curvature of the dress shape emphasizes the swaying of the fringe that would occur as the woman moved in the dress. Overall, the dress is in stable condition. The skin remains strong enough to support its beaded bodice. There were 6 bead-string breaks that were restrung onto cotton thread and stitched back into the dress by Conservation. The original vegetable fiber strings remain tucked away into the dress for research purposes. Special care is needed whenever handling this dress because of the fragility of the remaining vegetable fibers that hold the bead arrangements together.

Sioux, Northern Crow or Cheyenne pouch or strike-a-light bag for use by a woman. It might also have been used to carry ration tickets- the small chits handed out by Government Agents entitling people to food rations during the Reservation Period. It is decorated with Venetian beads, sinew sewn. It is Cheyenne in workmanship with a Sioux type design.

Museum Expedition 1903, Museum Collection Fund

Reviewed by Tim Ramsey, Southern Cheyenne/ Choctaw bead artist 10/13/04. He identified these as being Kiowa. These moccasins are painted blue (that discolors to greenish hue) with a round, green beaded medallion as a front flap. There is extensive hide fringe, painted dark blue, on the front flap and the back heel seam. Reviewed by Clyde M Hall, Shoshone Bannock, Laine Thom, Shoshone Goshiut Pauite, Melvin G Brewer, Ph.D., Internal Indian Affairs, Roberta Jones and Josephine A Williams, on Dec. 29, 2004. Consultants felt these were Kiowa. E. Hansen, Curator, Buffalo Bill Plains Indian Museum, 3/13-16/2007 Southern for sure and maybe Kiowa or even Wichita because of medallions and two lines going down to the toe and the flap. Blue color unusual as it is so very vivid, unusual.

This elaborate shirt is decorated with beads and quillwork executed in several techniques. The bib has a heart and two flower sprays in red, green, and blue porcupine quills. The top edge is decorated with blue pony beads in a two-bead edging technique: red garnet beads were applied along the sides with the same technique. An inner broken line border of small red and black seed beads are also sewn on the bib. Two"rays" or "spokes". The inner ring, now grey, is surrounded by a ring of light blue which is then encircled by a red ring. The radiant rays are filled with areas quilled in pale yellow, light blue, and orange. Each entire rosette is encircled at the seam by large blue pony beads. The shoulder seam "coverings" were finely woven on a loom, but are now very deteriorated. A geometric pattern of red and blue "Xs", interspersed with red and blue diamonds are edged with small squares in red, black, and blue. The shoulder strips are checkered, quilled with three lines of colored squares in orange, blue, purple, black, yellow and white and finished along the sides with a zigzag pattern. The seam ornaments and shoulder strips are both edged with a single line of the blue pony beads. Tabs along each side and along the sleeves have pierced decoration. The "cuffs" are ornamented with two lines of blue pony beads. First, a single line and then a double line closer to the opening.The side seams and sleeves have long fringes, but very tiny fringes at the wrist, with every other one wrapped with orange quills. The comparitively simple decoration and unwrapped fringe are possibly due to the fact the shirt produced exclusively for sale and so rated less decoration. See Jarvis report in Arts of Americas' files.

By exchange

Anonymous gift in memory of Dr. Harlow Brooks