Brooklyn Museum Collection

This dress is composed of four sections of very white and pliable skin, probably employing at least two deer or caribou hides. Two large pieces of skin were sewn together to form the front and back of the dress and the upper edge of the skin is turned down as a long graceful flap to the waist. Two smaller pieces of skin are added to serve as shoulder straps. The entire dress, including the quillwork, is sewn together with thread. The seams that join the two major sections are fringed. Fringe near the shoulder is clipped very short so that it appears "pinked" and the fringe at the bottom of the dress is wrapped with orange and blue porcupine quills. The decoration of the shoulder straps is somewhat unusual as it differs from front to back. Scallops terminate the straps on the dress' front' while fringes decorate the shorter ends of the straps at the back. The straps are also decorated with a row of tiny black beads that edge the sides of these straps and surround the three scalloped lobes on each. Pairs of black beads in a double row decorate the section of the strap that intersects with the low neck line. Each scalloped portion of the straps is also ornamented, right and left, with bows made of hide strips wrapped at intervals with orange and light blue quills. Similar string-like ornaments are also attached at the proper right side of the front flap and the proper left side on the black flap. Quillwork strips across the body of the dress are in green, black, brown, white, reddish orange and light blue. Black seed beads and blue pony beads are applied as a scalloped border on an added piece of skin near the hem of the dress and tin cones are suspended in pairs from the apex of each of these beaded curves by thin hide strands wrapped at intervals with orange quills. See Jarvis report in Arts of Americas files.

Provenience note, not every object in the collection is specifically listed and identified in the accession file list from Colyer in his letter dated August 29, 1872. The list mentions # "33, 34, 35 Indian beadwork from Wrangel Alaska, Stakeen [Stikine] Tribe." The Colyer collection does not contain a lot of Alaskan beadwork, so it is possible that some of the objects catalogued as E11411 - E11414, and identified as Tongass in the Anthropology catalogue ledger book, might be these objects?Florence Sheakley, an elder and beader, made the following comments during the Tlingit Recovering Voices Community Research Visit, March 13-March 24, 2017. This object has beadwork sewn to the edges, suggesting that it's a belt. A bag strap would be clear of any design at the edges. This object is 49 inches long, features a mountain design, and was likely a dancing belt. This object is made of small beads and bias tape.

The leather is caribou.