Clara Caufield: Native people became quickly skilled in beadwork

Thursday, June 20, 2019  

In the great perspective of time, beading is relatively new to Tribes, maybe two centuries, those little itty-bitty items introduced by traders. How I’ve wondered, do they make them?

Natives have ever had a flair for decorating, ‘making everyday things pretty’, especially personal clothing and items such as purses, war bags, and especially ‘dance’ regalia. They are very inventive and clever, using what is available.

For example, “plastic shiny bling” is now very popular, especially for pow wow regalia. When a great Northern Cheyenne beader, Steve Littlebird was criticized for using “bling” (not traditional), he just laughed, saying “It is traditional for Indians to use whatever is available.”

Before the arrival of beads, they used porky pine quills. Know how to get them? I do, thanks to one of my grandmas.

Porky pines are slow waddlers and sometimes, if you get lucky, you can spot one in broad daylight. This is the trick: do not kill it, instead let it keep going to grow more quills. Grab a blanket; snare it, quickly and tightly wrapping it. That critter will then wiggle around greatly, shooting its quills, which stick into and are captured by the blanket.

And then you say “Thank you Brother” releasing it. You might luckily see that friend again.

Then came the hard work: Extract the quills from the blanket; carefully clip off the stickery ends; soak them in water and then place then flat to dry, anchored by rocks, all then pale ivory shade. But, what about color?

Then came more work: dying the quills. There are several different shades of clay mud found upon the plains and in the mountains: a rust red which can be enhanced by dried rose hips; light blue, also deepened by dried flowers; and yellow, very bright when boiled with dried sunflowers to make ‘paints’: the quills soaked in such solutions pick up the color, then once again carefully dried and pressed.

Then, a sharp bone or rock needle and sinew was used to apply them to garments and other items, also hand-made, all in all, a very laborious process. At any rate, that is how it has been explained to me, because I don’t know how to do quill work. (And there are certainly many others who know more about this.) Now, of course the quill process is much easier – they can even be purchased “ready to go”, but quilling is not so prevalent anymore.

No wonder the Natives were happy to get beads, a much easier product for decorating. The Tribes took to beadwork quickly – each developing a distinctive style. Of course, that created a dependency upon trade, especially for needles.

Many of the Plains Tribes such as the Cheyenne, Sioux and Blackfeet favor geometric designs, while others such as the Arapahoe and Shoshone go for the floral. It’s relatively easy to distinguish different tribal patterns by the designs and the use of color. I’ve always found it amusing that a favorite Crow color is called Cheyenne pink.

Clara Caufield can be reached at acheyennevoice@gmail.com

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today