Dress

Unknown

ca. 1870 · Tanned leather and glass beads · The American Wing

Vertical lanes of beadwork, in place of the typical horizontal configuration, give this dress its distinctive character. The U-shaped motif at the lower center represents Turtle, a symbol of power relating to women’s health. Like most bead workers in the mid-nineteenth century, this maker favored tiny glass Venetian seed beads over the larger pony beads popular in earlier periods. Today, women wear elaborately beaded dresses reminiscent of this one for the Women’s Traditional Dance, one of several categories in powwow competitions.

Artist

Unknown

Date

ca. 1870

Medium

Tanned leather and glass beads

Culture

Lakota/ Teton Sioux, Native American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection of Native American Art, Gift of Charles and Valerie Diker, 2019