Headcanon: Beadwork
Traditionally, women from the Great Plains Tribes like the Lakota would practice beadwork and quillwork. The latter uses porcupine quills and natural dye to decorate clothing.
Today, many Native Americans still practice these crafts, creating beautiful masterpieces in forms of jewelry, embellishing regalia or even every day clothing like the images below.
Harmony learned how to use beadwork from her mother and older cousins. It’s a skill that she doesn’t practice every day, but she knows how to work with beads (typically seed beads). She can create necklaces, bracelets, earrings, hair accessories, and simpler designs on bags and belt buckles. She doesn’t quite have enough experience to make more complex designs on larger articles of clothing like shoes and clothes. But with more practice, Harmony will improve her skills and master the art like many members of her family.
Unfortunately, Harmony does not quite know how to do quillwork since that is a delicate process in prepping the harvested quills, dying them, pressing, and taking great care to place them on projects.
------------------------------------------------------
[Examples of quillwork and beadwork from the Plains Tribes are below. Other tribes outside the Great Plains also practice beadwork and quillwork and there are more works that display contemporary designs.
These images are big, but these are to show some details. I also added some bits of info on Great Plains culture. I might do a separate thing on southeastern tribes since I’m from there. I focused on the Great Plains since Harmony is Lakota. ]
Artist: Good Bear. Waci’-ci Trading Co.
See the thin, white lines at the center? That’s one example of quillwork. Many crafts would have both beads and quills to make beautiful and intricate designs .
Medicine Wheel bolo tie Seven Fires Art
This piece is made of quillwork.
Note: Bolo ties are kind of like ties. They’re braided cord fastened with a decorative clasp. Anyone can wear them, but many Indigenous people would wear these.
This is a cradleboard decorated with beads. Cradleboards are traidionally used to carry infants. The mother would wear the cradle board on her back, and would take it off and have it rest against a sturdy surface so her baby will be close while she works. Cradleboards secure babies and keep them upright while supporting the head. Other tribes that are not from the Great Plains also used cradleboards.
Today, some Indigenous parents choose to get cradleboards to carry their babies, and they are decorated in lovely designs.
This traditional Plains dress (1880-1920) has beadwork along the top. You can see the how the artist pay careful attention to detail in their work.
This is a knife pouch decorate with quillwork.
Authentic Native Made from Etsy
These are some baby mocassins decorated with beads.
9 notes
·
View notes