Doll with horsehair braids decorated with blue and white streamers. Buckskin dress with a green, white, blue, and red belt with buckskin boots. Lovely big feet where the beadworker probably used left over beads as they are many colors. She wears long, dangling beaded earings.

Fragment, missing the ends. Was woven as a headband.Might not be Plains but Woodlands.

Gift of Sasha Nyary and Family

Probably Apache because of the use of the black beads. Some pieces of cotton thread in the back. Could be a paint bag.

The Jarvis Collection

Many of the articles in this case (and the adjacent clothing case), some of the earliest and finest Eastern Plains pieces in existence, were collected by Dr. Nathan Sturges Jarvis, a military surgeon stationed at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, between 1833 and 1836. Most items were made by the Eastern and Middle Dakota (Sioux) or by the peoples of the Red River region, including the Red River Métis, Anishinabe, Plains Cree, and Salteaux. Some of the objects were purchased by Jarvis, and some may have been given to him in exchange for his medical services.

These works demonstrate indigenous ingenuity in combining trade materials such as cloth, metal, and glass beads with traditional hides, pipestone, and porcupine and bird quills. For comparison, a few examples collected later by Nathan Jarvis, Jr., during his army service in the Western Territories among the Apache and other Plains peoples are also included. These items clearly show the later indigenous preference for multicolored glass trade beads.

Bequest of W.S. Morton Mead

These might be northern Cheyenne as the extra tall ankle pieces may be a version used by a northern artist. These baby’s moccasins have the tipi door design but there is no extra beaded strip across the vamp and heel that would usually be found on Cheyenne moccasins. The pointed toe is also an earlier fashion of northern Cheyenne but they could also be Northern Arapaho. They have parfleche bottoms as remants of the painted design remain. Quite a lot of the green fringe cloth is missing from around the ankle.

Definitely northern Plains. On Gros Vente moccasins one sees beaded designs like this on deer or elk hide, from around the Fort Belknap reservation region. But this "arrow" design is a very common design used by several different tribes. Since they do not look particularly Salish, or Sioux, they possibly are Arapaho.

(See object on bottom of photograph) Central & Northern Plains Sioux people made awl cases by winding or wrapping beads around a tubular shaft, made originally of rawhide and later sometimes of cardboard. Few cases in collections have bone or steel awls in them. Some have pointed wooden sticks, which may have been used as hair-part painters. Depending on size, and evidence of paint remains, some of these may be paint stick holders. These cases were hung on women's belts long after the use of the awl had diminished a vestigial representation of women’s traditional gear. and traditional role. The small, faceted dark red translucent tube beads were very popular in the 1830-1870 period. The use of the Cornaline d’Aleppo beads, red with a yellow interior, makes this piece especially fine. Great as household object. The white beads are unusual.

Brooklyn Museum Collection