This shirt is constructed with very little tailoring. It is left open at the sides and a triangular bib is sewn on at the neck. This bib is decorated with blue pony beads, patterned with rows of triangles. Strips made of porcupine quillwork and maidenhair fern stems have been placed on the arms, shoulders and as epaulets. Long buckskin fringes have been added at the sides of the shirt, the bottom, and the sleeves. The shirt is dyed a yellowish-orange color. On the proper right side, many narrow, brown, horizontal bands that are bisected at one end have been painted. These have been said to stand for horse whips. On the proper left, four hourglass shapes, almost completely filled in with black, have been painted. They have been said to stand for cloth or blankets. The triangular neck flap is beaded somewhat differently from front to back. The front shows two rows of triangles whereas the back includes a third row that contains two triangles. The blue beads visually square off the pointed end of the skin and are similar to the design on Jarvis shirt 50.67.1a.

Along the outside edge of each legging is a strip of quillwork, with red, a white and a purplish-brown stripe. The strip is edged on one side with blue pony beads and on the other with white seed beads. The back of each legging is decorated with horizontal brown painted stripes. Side tabs at the top are sewn on separately, as are the flaps for the heels.

The object is the shirt of a Yanktonai Sioux Man. It matches leggings #50.67.3b-c. It is constructed of soft light tan pliable leather. The sides of the shirt are open and have leather thongs to lace them together. The lower edge of the shirt is cut into short rectangles like a fringe. The large triangular bibs frame the neck, one at the front of the shirt, and one at the back, and are decorated with red and black dots. The neck is decorated with dark blue cut glass beads spaced about 1 1/2 inches apart. The lower edges of the shirt, the sleeve cuffs, and the triangular neckpieces are decorated with diamond-shaped perforations in lines, triangles and face patterns. There is a porcupine quill medallion in the center of the chest at the bottom point of the triangle. It is made up of concentric rings of red, blue, yellow, brown, and white plaited quills. The seams of the shoulders and the sleeves are decorated with leather fringes and red and blue quills wrapped around hair bundles. Among some tribes it is believed that hair carries some of the characteristics of the person or animal from which it comes. Therefore, using hair in clothing may give the wearer additional strength, speed, or another positive attribute. Each sleeve is decorated on the underside with a series of seven black lines. The body of the shirt is also decorated with drawings of hunting scenes that include horses, a bison, and spears. Holes in the leather are backed with red stroud cloth. Stroud cloth is a coarse, close-weave wool textile that was imported from England and commonly used among Native Americans in garments and blankets. Red was the most frequently used color although navy and green were also produced and traded, and the colored selvedges were often prized as decorative elements. The shirt is in stable condition. There is old insect damage to the medallion quills. Many of the quills are faded. Also, some of the red stroud cloth patches have old insect damage. A leather tassel is torn along decorative perforations. See additional material in Jarvis report in Arts of Americas' files.

Made of heavily smoked skin sewn with sinew, the vamps of these moccasins are decorated with a delicate, quillwork design. A central, vertically oriented, diamond shape in red is surrounded by four diagonal leaf-like elements in blue. The tri-lobed petals at top are red at center, blue on each side. The lower petals are red at center, white on each side. The seam is also outlined with blue and white bird quills. The mocassins are constructed without the usual characteristic center seam running from the toe to a vamp. A heel seam, center to the cuff and bottom, ends in two short tabs.There is no evidence that these mocassins were ever worn. See Jarvis supplimental file in Arts of Americas' office.

The mocassins are constructed with smoked buckskin that is gathered into a series of small folds or "puckers" by seams running from the area above the toes to the area below the ankle. The seams are decorated by quillwork made up of orange lines and centered white and dark purple triangles crossed by a series of four additional linear designs. The seams of the heel are decorated in simple configured quillwork bands of white, light blue, and dark purple crosses. Cuffs are added onto the mocassins as separate semi-circular pieces of deerskin with quilled borders containing an undulating dark purple band and several straight lines. Metal cones, stuffed with dyed red deer hair are suspended from the edges of the cuffs.

This white buckskin shirt, with the faint remnants of a pinkish stain in the general shoulder area, has a squared cloth bib and cuffs made of red Stroud cloth. This bib has been attached with knotted lengths of buckskin thong. Both bib and cuffs are decorated with white seed beads and additional pony beads are sewn onto the bib. A line of chain stitch embroidery in blue decorates the bib at the front while the back of the bib is plain. A rosette on the front center of the shirt is decorated with reddish-orange and white porcupine quills and brown maidenhair fern stems that are in a configuration that probably represent a thunderbird. Bird quills in white, green, and brown are wrapped around the rawhide strips that are suspended from each shoulder. Additional fringe is inserted in each sleeve seam, which is wrapped at the base with red bird quills and white porcupine quills. Four long, pierced strips, two suspended under each sleeve, are also fringed. Horizontal reddish stripes are painted on the back of the shirt. A rectangular shaped repair, which appears to be of native origin, located on the front of the proper right shoulder, has been reattached to the long pierced tab by a knotted string of hide that matches the existing fringe. See Jarvis research file in Arts of Americas office.

This type of quilled article is a prime example of the ingenuity of the artist to take traditional materials, quills, normally used in bags and clothing decoration and fashion a new item for the trade markets. The seat cushion reflects the Victorian mode of seat cushions used in non-Native homes of the period.

Decorated bags similar to this in size are sometimes referred to as "firebags" or "shot pouches" because they often held tobacco, flint and steel or a piece of touchwood for starting fires. This hide pouch combines elements of floral design and geometric patterns. Only one side of the pouch is decorated. The top of the pouch is quill embroidered with three simple foliate forms that contain alternating stems from which emerge bi-lobed leaves. The three plants grow from a crescent shape, a shape that may be read as a seed pod. Two quill woven strips that contain geometric forms are attached to the pouch. Both of these strips have white grounds with four major design elements on each, interspersed with small triangles and crosses. The top strip starts at the left with an eight-pointed star which is red at the center, then outlined in white on a brown field, outlined in turn in pink and the outer edge bordered in blue. The second element is also eight-pointed, as if a square and diamond are combined. At its center, a brown rectangle is surrounded by a larger rectangle of orange and red, then a white border, a blue border, then a pink border with projections at right and left, still another blue border, a white border, and finally, a brown border as the outer edge of the same form. The third element design is the same as the second and the fourth form is the same as the first. On the second, woven loomed quill strip, the first form on the left is an eight-pointed star with a brown and red checkered rectangle at center, surrounded by a white border on a blue field, surrounded in turn by a pink border, and then finally outlined in brown. The second form is irregular and may be described as a vertically oriented rectangle with a pronounced point emerging at right and left. At the center is a reddish strip, bordered and crossed horizontally in white, on a brown field that is surrounded by a blue border, then a pink border, a brown one, a white one, and then a final blue outline. The third element is the same as the second and the fourth is the same as the first. See supplemental Jarvis file in Arts of Americas' office.

This elaborate shirt is decorated with beads and quillwork executed in several techniques. The bib has a heart and two flower sprays in red, green, and blue porcupine quills. The top edge is decorated with blue pony beads in a two-bead edging technique: red garnet beads were applied along the sides with the same technique. An inner broken line border of small red and black seed beads are also sewn on the bib. Two"rays" or "spokes". The inner ring, now grey, is surrounded by a ring of light blue which is then encircled by a red ring. The radiant rays are filled with areas quilled in pale yellow, light blue, and orange. Each entire rosette is encircled at the seam by large blue pony beads. The shoulder seam "coverings" were finely woven on a loom, but are now very deteriorated. A geometric pattern of red and blue "Xs", interspersed with red and blue diamonds are edged with small squares in red, black, and blue. The shoulder strips are checkered, quilled with three lines of colored squares in orange, blue, purple, black, yellow and white and finished along the sides with a zigzag pattern. The seam ornaments and shoulder strips are both edged with a single line of the blue pony beads. Tabs along each side and along the sleeves have pierced decoration. The "cuffs" are ornamented with two lines of blue pony beads. First, a single line and then a double line closer to the opening.The side seams and sleeves have long fringes, but very tiny fringes at the wrist, with every other one wrapped with orange quills. The comparitively simple decoration and unwrapped fringe are possibly due to the fact the shirt produced exclusively for sale and so rated less decoration. See Jarvis report in Arts of Americas' files.

This pair of leggings was acquired as a set with shirt 50.67.1a. Like most men's leggings they extend from the top of the foot to the top of the hip and were meant to be fastened at the waist with a belt. The leggings are long enough that a large portion of skin hung over the wearer's belt and fit the leg tightly. The bottom tabs are actually the forelegs of the animal and they might be left to drag behind or rolled up and tied around the ankle. The proper left legging is colored red, while on the right it is a dark brown and this creates a mirror image of the colors on the matching shirt. Both leggings are painted with brown vertical stripes. The pinkish cast over both leggings and shirt has been reported to be earth paint; the brown identified as possibly limonite found in shallow pond bottoms or at the edges of bogs. The stripes seem to be applied with a stiff instrument, perhaps a bone brush. A large black and white (eagle?) feather is attached to one legging. Scalp locks are fastened in a series, as a fringe on the outside of the legs. See Jarvis report in Arts of Americas files.