Beauty, Honor and Tradition: The Legacy of Plains Indian Shirts (2001)

By: George P. Horse Capture & Joseph D. Horse Capture

To the Plains Indians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, elaborately decorated hide shirts were symbols of bravery earned only by the most courageous of warriors. Those who had met the enemy in battle or slipped undetected into enemy camps to capture horses were awarded shirts specifically created to honor the wearer and the heroic deeds associated with him. Made from the skins of elk, deer, or mountain sheep, these spectacular garments were adorned with porcupine quills, paint, ribbons, locks of hair, and glass beads. Believed to hold intrinsic spiritual power, these shirts continue to play a large part in American Indian society today. Symbolizing honor, courage, and ancestral tradition, they are worn by tribal leaders at powwows and earned by students according to their academic and athletic accomplishments.

Beauty, Honor, and Tradition, a traveling exhibition organized by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, presents a new perspective on these garments, their creation and history, and their place in the cultures of the Plains Indian tribes. Through photographs and detailed descriptions of fifty-three representative shirts crafted from the 1820s to the 1990s, this book explores the complex relationship between the shirts, their makers, and their wearers. Throughout the text the voices of individual Plains Indians speak of the personal and cultural significance of these magnificent garments.

More Information

Description

Washington, D.C. : National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution ; Minneapolis, Minn. : Minneapolis Institute of Arts : Distributed by the University of Minnesota PressCreation Date©2001
Format: 159 pages : illustrations (some color), map ; 31 cm
ISBN : 0816639469  9780816639465
OCLC : 47659531

Table of contents

Table of contents

Acknowledgments 
Directors’ introductions: 
[Introduction] / by Richard M. Maurer 
Second skins / [by] W. Richard West 
About the exhibition 
The legacy of Plains Indian shirts 
Map of the North American plains 
Shirts and leggings 
Shirts of power 
Power in details 
Warrior as artist 
Shirts of distinction 
Southern Plains : a unique style 
Power in animals 
Transitional 
Shared quillwork styles 
Shared beadwork styles 
Historic photography credits 
Index 
Bibliography

About the author

About the author

Joseph D. Horse Capture is assistant curator in the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. They are coauthors of Warrior Artists (1998).

George P. Horse Capture is deputy assistant director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian, and author of Powwow (1992).

Book Reviews

Book Reviews

Nagy, Imre. “Beauty, Honor, and Tradition: The Legacy of Plains Indian Shirts.” Great Plains Quarterly 23, no. 2 (2003): 136. http://search.proquest.com/openview/ae581e22e78f7b5f389df6a65d41195f/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=105990

Student reviews