Native American appliqué and ribbonwork

Tribes affected: Northwest Coast, Eastern Woodlands, Southeast tribes

Significance: The personalized designs for these traditional garment decorations both express individual style and maintain group identity

Clothing is a silent communication of personal or cultural values and beliefs. Observers may not understand the meanings being expressed, but they are usually aware that a certain style is not accidental. Decorations such as appliqué and ribbonwork may lend similarity (if not uniformity) to the clothing of a people. Styles of clothing and decoration may be maintained over time as part of a people’s culture; some garments themselves are literally passed down through many generations. Since such garments are usually handmade, they are a visible history of a family, clan, or a people and are thought to carry the essence of the original wearer.

Appliqué

Appliqués are cutout decorations of contrasting color or fabric stitched to a garment. They are often embellished with stitching, beads, or shells. The Kwakiutl people of the Northwest Coast are famous for their appliquéd button blankets. Worn as ceremonial shawls, the red blankets carry large blue or black appliquéd crests of Raven, Wolf, or Eagle Clans. Outlines of gleaming mother-of-pearl and abalone buttons (as many as three thousand) emphasize the crests and trim the edges of these magnificent blankets. In addition to expressing wealth, the wearing of these blankets imparts the qualities of clan animals.

The Kwakiutl people are well known for the ceremonial potlatch, an extravagant giveaway once banned by the Canadian government. On the eve of the potlatch, women wear button blankets as they dance in the smoke-filled great house. While the women sing mourning songs, the iridescent buttons sparkle in the firelight, helping to drive away sadness so the celebration can proceed. The next day, the men in their crested button blankets perform the Chiefs’ Dance to begin the potlatch.

After contact with Europeans provided new fabrics, Eastern Woodlands women put aside their deerskin outfits and decorated their cotton shawls and skirts with wide borders of silk appliqué. These formal outfits are worn in ceremony and at social gatherings. In the mid-twentieth century, younger Woodlands women adapted this style to create the cape dancer’s outfit now often seen at pow-wows. The young dancers whirl in their one-of-a-kind satin shawls decorated with bright, bold appliqués and yards of fringe. For ceremonies and pow-wows, Woodlands men wear aprons and leggings of black velvet decorated in stylized nature designs. These are typically rendered in colorful combinations of appliqué, embroidery, and beads.

Ribbonwork

Women from the Seminole tribe and Miccosukee tribe of Florida have raised the use of decorative ribbons to an art form. One of the most recognizable styles in North America, some of these attractive designs have been used for many decades. The practice may have begun after contact with Spanish officials who wore striped brocade on dress uniforms. In the trading days of the late 1800’s, the hand-cranked sewing machine was readily adopted by Southeast women to adorn calico skirts and shirts. The early patterns of wide bands of single contrasting colors soon evolved into elaborate multicolored patchwork strips. The strips are combined with bands of ribbon in a manner similar to that used in quilting and sewn together.

Both men and women wear garments of this distinctive type. The early tradition was knee-length shirts for elderly men and longer shirts for younger men. Women and girls wore full-length ribbon skirts topped with a lightweight cape edged in ribbons. Later a popular waist-length jacket was rendered in a Seminole ribbon style for men.

Traditional Seminole patterns are still used and are often altered as the tailor expresses her own ideas. Complex designs have names, such as checkers or rattlesnake, suggested by something they resemble. Designs are treasured but are not claimed as personal property. They are shared with friends and handed down within families. Copying of designs by those who admire them is considered an honor to the originator.

The use of ribbons in ceremonial dress was carried to Oklahoma by the Creek, formerly of the Southeast. In the Ribbon Dance, women wear rainbow-colored headdresses of cascading ribbons as they parade through the public square. The annual ceremony reaffirms and honors the role of women within the community.

Bibliography

Billard, Jules B., et al. The World of the American Indian. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1974. More than 440 color illustrations, maps of culture areas, poems and chants, and tribal location supplement. Back-pocket map, index, and acknowledgments.

Garbarino, Merwyn. The Seminole. New York: Chelsea House, 1989. Culture, history, and effect of European contact on the Seminole people; Seminole resistance under leader Osceola; color and black-and-white photographs; and designs of Seminole ribbonwork clothing.

Maxwell, James A., et al. America’s Fascinating Indian Heritage. Pleasantville: Reader’s Digest, 1978. Comprehensive account of culture areas, prehistory (including Mesoamerican), cultural, political, and social issues of early twentieth century. Includes more than seven hundred color illustrations as well as descriptions of ceremonies. List of museums, historic villages, and archaeological sites.

Owen, Roger G., et al. The North American Indians: A Sourcebook. Macmillan: New York, 1967. Collection of original (edited) articles dating from 1888 to 1963 and arranged by culture areas; history, evolution, and demography; and social perspectives of the mid-twentieth century. Includes references, additional reading list, and a directory of 250 educational films.

Underhill, Ruth M. Red Man’s America: A History of Indians in the United States. Sixth impression. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Surveys origins, history, social customs, material culture, religion, and mythology. Written from the perspective of the first peoples of North America.