Beads were no more valuable than any other trade good. The first European explorers and colonists … [sorry I had to delete this part of your post because it is plagiarized from Kathy Fox, The Venetian Glass Bead, p. While I appreciate your strong feelings on this subject, Ms. I am curious about beads from the little I know it seems the natives traded all sorts of things for beads, what did they use prior to the whites coming? Did beads have value and if so why. Hi Jo, Native Americans used beads as a kind of money long before they saw the first European beads.
They made beads out of seashells, and out of colorful rocks, and carved them out of wood. You can carry a lot of them easily by stringing them on a necklace or weaving them into a belt, but you can take one bead off to trade for something small, too.
When Europeans came, Native people were excited to get new kinds of beads — glass beads! But as the Europeans brought more and more of them, they became less rare and were worth less. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Native American clothing history — cotton and agave. Cite this page: Carr, K. October 22, About the Author: Karen Carr. Related Posts. Early Native American Economy — farming and trade. Using animal hides as clothing also served another purpose.
For much of Native American history, they also used the plants native to their region for clothing. They even used tree bark, if you can imagine that! The fibers gathered from shredding the bark would then be woven into various items of clothing, such as skirts, hats, capes, and aprons. They are artfully created, decorated with beads, quills, and other traditional materials. The most common materials used to create clothing and adornments were deer and elk hides, porcupine quills, elk teeth, bone, and bird or animal claws.
Dentalium shells, a type of mollusk shell, were also used. These were obtained through trade with American Indian tribes that lived near bodies of water, mainly the Northwest Coast groups.
Also through trade, fabric dresses were incorporated into the repertoire of Plains groups. Traditionally, while men obtained the hides through hunting, women did the rest. They tanned the hides, making them soft and pliable, and then constructed the garment and added the intricate decoration.
Designs on clothing symbolize the things the maker saw around her, such as the sky, moon and stars, water, animals, and tepees. Sometimes the designs also depicted important events.
While styles of dresses varied somewhat throughout the Plains region, a basic style was the two-skin, or binary dress. It was made by sewing together two hide panels made of elk, bighorn sheep, or deer skin. The hind legs of the animal became the shoulder area of the dress. Shoulder seams were sewn a few inches below the uneven edges of the skins, and the edges flapped over with the tails hanging down at the center of the chest and back. Another style of dress was similar to the binary style, but with a separate third piece making up a larger yoke that sits around the neck and shoulder area.
Leggings and moccasins were worn also. Before beads became available, dresses and other clothing were adorned with shells, porcupine quills, and other natural materials, and paint made from minerals, clays, and plants mixed with a binder such as animal fat.
In one style, the whole otter skin was used, the head being brought around in a circle and attached near the base of the tail while the tail itself flapped out on one side. Other otterskin turbans were made by sewing the skin into a wide tube.
Otterskin turbans were sometimes decorated with beads and ribbons, and worn with eagle plumes. For ceremonial occasions, particularly in times of war, a roach was worn. Rows of the shorter tail hair of deer, usually dyed red, were combined with rows of the longer white guard-hairs from porcupines. Moose hair could sometimes replace the deer hair and, on the Prairies where porcupines were not found, turkey beards were substituted for porcupine hair.
A bone "roach spreader" ran through the top-center of the headdress and forced the stiff hair upward and outward to give it a brush-like effect. It was embellished with a single eagle feather, the quill end swiveling in a bone socket attached to the center of the roach, and the feather swung freely as the man moved.
A lock of hair was then pushed through a hole in the roach and securely tied. In more recent times, the roach was held on the head by a headband mount made of strap leather. When it was not being worn, the roach was folded carefully and wrapped over a cylindrical stick to keep its shape and prevent the hairs from being broken.
For Indian women in the Great Lakes, the basic garment was a sleeveless dress made of two deerskins, one for the front and one for the back, sewn together at the shoulders and belted. This was worn over an undershirt of woven nettle fiber.
Deerskin leggings fell from the knees to the ankles and were fastened just below the knee with a thong or band. Moccasins completed the costume. For work, especially in warm weather, a long, tanned deerskin shirt was worn. Long, full deerskin dresses, reaching to the ankles, with fringed sleeves and fringe at the bottom were a relatively recent innovation simulating White women's dress of the late 19th century.
After contact with Euroamericans, cotton cloth and thick wool cloth called broadcloth became the prime material for women's clothing. These materials were secured at trading posts or reservation stores. Originally, the skirt consisted of a square piece of deerskin, but in postcontact times, broadcloth was wrapped around the body, meeting in the front.
For everyday wear, women wore simple cotton dresses or wool skirts and cotton blouses. For special occasions, much more elaborate clothing was worn. The upper portion was folded outward over a belt. Over these, women wore loose blouses made of printed cotton cloth which had deep flounces or ruffles over the chest. The flounces could be decorated with narrow bands of silk ribbon and dozens of small German silver brooches.
Over the shoulders, a robe -- a piece of silk appliqued or beaded broadcloth the size of a small blanket -- was worn like a cape. Despite changes in the use of cloth for larger garments, moccasins were still traditionally made of deerskin decorated with beads or ribbonwork. Women wore their hair in a single braid falling down their backs. In historic times, ribbons were often intertwined in the braid, and a comb made of German silver was added for further decoration.
For dress occasions, the traditional older style of hair decoration was the "hair-tie": the braid of hair was doubled up and tied in a "club" and wound with pieces of deerskin or beaded cloth, about five by 10 inches. Long, narrow streamers of quillwork or loomed beadwork were attached to the clubbed hair and hung nearly to the ground, swaying as the woman walked or danced.
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