A STORY OF DECORATIVE ART 



By Clark Wissler 



AMONG the exhibit for the Indians of the Plains may be seen a few 

 of those long, flowing buckskin dresses with beaded yokes so 

 characteristic of their time, and in many yoke patterns can be 

 seen a small fT^-shaped figure. Some old Teton-Sioux women once told me 

 that it had been handed down to them that this figure symbolizes a turtle's 

 head as he emerges from the lake represented by the beaded body of the 

 yoke. In that fascinating jumble of myth, philosophy and religion from 

 which these people derive the sanctions for their acts, the turtle stands for 

 concepts intimately associated with woman and her ways, and hence it is 

 fitting that the sign of the turtle should be upon the dress. The resemblance 

 is apparent and it is natural to assume that this design was devised expressly 

 to represent the turtle, since there is both poetry and art in the decoration 

 of these old dresses. 



Yet while we are convinced that these wrinkled old matrons of the 

 Sioux told us what had indeed been handed down to them by their mothers, 

 we hesitate to accept this as indicating the true origin of the design, for 

 upon the garments of other tribes, even those speaking other stock languages, 

 we find similar figures. The women of the Assiniboin, the Cree, the Gros 

 Ventre, the Mandan, the Blackfoot, the Cheyenne, and others used varia- 

 tions of this figure on their dresses, for even the Indian belle had a weakness 

 for the styles of foreign tribes. The simple fact that the style is so distrib- 

 uted does not necessarily weaken the assumption that it originated among 

 the Sioux since from them it may well have been borrowed, while the fact 

 that in so far as we know, not one of these other tribes has the least sus- 

 picion that the f/-like figure represents a turtle or anything else, gives some 

 color to its assumed Siouan origin. When however the dresses of the 

 Blackfoot and some other tribes are examined, we note that in preparing 

 the deer or elk hide for a dress the tanner is careful not to remove the hair 

 from the tail. We note further that these dresses are fashioned by join- 

 ing the tail ends of two elk or deer skins by a yoke or neck piece, the tail 

 tuft by its position falling just below the center of the yoke. W'hen the 

 beading is laid on, the patterns are carried around the tail tuft with a sharp 

 f/-like turn. This is well shown on the fine old Blackfoot dress in the 

 Audubon collection. 



In some dresses the tail tuft is not as originally attached but sewed in 

 place, making it clear that the conventions of style require the small tuft 

 of hair on that part of the garment. When we look again at certain Sioux 

 dresses, especially the one on the tall figure standing in one of the Museum 

 cases, the beaded design bears even stronger resemblance to a deer tail 

 than to a turtle. The tuft of hair is wanting, but within the beaded U 



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