The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Beauty, Honor, and Tradition: The Legacy of Plains Indian Shirts, February 22 - May 16, 2004

Shared Quillwork Styles

The migratory lifestyle of the buffalo-hunting Plains Indians provided no room for frills. Every item in their world was useful, portable, and often artistic. Quillwork, a uniquely American Indian art, is one of the oldest and most colorful forms of ornamentation.
 
Native women developed quillwork, one of the first highly sophisticated art forms to come out of the Plains, centuries ago. Because of the linear nature of porcupine quills, quillwork designs tend to be geometric, but some tribes did develop abstract floral patterns. Although extremely decorative and colorful, quills made the items they were applied to fragile. On shirts, quillwork strips also had a functional purpose—to conceal the unsightly seams of the garment.
 
The Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara—three tribes that now reside on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in central North Dakota—were the most prolific of the Plains quillworkers, and the majority of quilled shirts that exist today were probably made by women from these tribes. With the introduction of glass beads during the early 19th century, Plains quillwork declined and almost disappeared during the 20th century. But because of the dedicated efforts of two Plains Indian families in South Dakota, quillwork has undergone something of a revival and can now be seen at most powwows in Indian country.

Earl Old Person "You know, our colors that we see most [often] with the Blackfeet people are red [and] yellow. You see it a lot. And [for] most people [who] take the lead in the ceremonies, [these are] the colors that they use all the time. And even when they paint their horses up, they’re using those same colors."
-Earl Old Person (Pikuni)

Numakiki, Sahnish, or Minitari (Mandan, Arikara, or Hidatsa)
Shirt (back), about 1880
Numakiki, Sahnish, or Minitari (Mandan, Arikara, or Hidatsa)
Shirt (back), about 1880