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Santee Sioux Native North American Dakota, Great Plains

Woman's Dress, late 1800s - early 1900s

Description

Maker

  • Unknown

Culture

Santee

Title

Woman's Dress

Year

late 1800s - early 1900s

Medium

Wool plain weave with silk ribbon, sequin, and shell appliqué

Materials/Techniques

Materials

  • wool

Techniques

  • plain weave

Dimensions

Center back length: 133.4 cm (52 1/2 inches)

Place

Great Plains

Type

  • Fashion,
  • Costume

Credit

Museum Works of Art Fund

Object Number

44.592

Collection

From the Heye Foundation

Projects & Publications

Publications

A World of Costume and Textiles

A Handbook of the Collection

Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Form, Pattern, and Function

December 4, 1992 - January 24, 1993

In precontact times before the 18th century, women of the big­game-hunting Dakota tribes wore dresses similar to this one in design, made out of two deer or elkskins seamed at the sides with a hole at the top for the head and the "legs" of the skin creating interesting "flags" at each side of the skirt. When tradecloth became available, the original form was kept, and dresses were sewn complete with "legs" in the new material. The dress is ornamented with Dentalium pretiosum shells traded from Puget Sound to South Dakota via established networks. The dress offers an interesting comparison to the Zuni pueblo clothing on the West wall of this gallery that were woven in rectangular shapes and draped; in this case and in the case of the Micmac hood, new materials came into play, but the traditional cut-and-sewn form of the clothing did not change.

A World of Costume and Textiles

September 22 - November 12, 1989

Use

The images on this website can enable discovery and collaboration and support new scholarship, and we encourage their use. This object is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). This object is Woman's Dress with the accession number of 44.592. To request high-resolution files or new photography, please send an email to imagerequest@risd.edu and include your name and the object's accession number.

Feedback

We view our online collection as a living documents, and our records are frequently revised and enhanced. If you have additional information or have spotted an error, please send feedback to curatorial@risd.edu.

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