Santee Sioux Native North American Dakota, Great Plains

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.