WAR BONNETS
- In the old days the bonnet was only worn on special occasions and it was highly symbolic. Its beauty was of secondary importance for its real value was in its power to protect the wearer
- The bonnet had to be earned through brave deeds in battle for the very feathers it contained were significant of the deeds themselves. Some warriors might be able to obtain only two or three honour feathers in their whole lifetime, so difficult were they to earn.
- The bonnet was the mark of highest respect because it could never be worn without the consent of the leaders of the tribe.
- Feathers were notched and decorated to designate an event. Feathers told individual stories such as killing, scalping, capturing an enemy's weapon and shield and whether the deed had been done on horseback or foot.
- When about ten honours had been won the warrior then went out to secure the eagle feathers with which to make his bonnet. Ceremonies were conducted to appeal to the spirits of the birds to be killed
- The eagle was considered by the Indian as the greatest and most powerful of all birds and the finest bonnets were made out of its feathers.
- Someone holding a completed boonnet could tell countless stories. This exercise borrows from this old tradition and guides the writer in their quest to document either their own, or the stories of others.
- A warrior's war bonnet, such as the famous war bonnet of Roman Nose, the Cheyenne warrior, served to protect him during battle. In several instances Roman Nose, wearing his war bonnet, rode back and forth before soldiers of the United States Army during battles of theIndian Wars and despite being firing upon by many soldiers was unscathed.
DREAMCATCHERS
- Dream catchers are one of the most fascinating traditions of Native Americans. The traditional dream catcher was intended to protect the sleeping individual from negative dreams, while letting positive dreams through.
- In Ojibwe culture is the inanimate form of the word "spider"
- The positive dreams would slip through the hole in the center of the dream catcher, and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person below. The negative dreams would get caught up in the web, and expire when the first rays of the sun struck them.
- The dream catcher has been a part of Native American culture for generations. One element of Native American dream catcher relates to the tradition of the hoop. Some Native Americans of North America held the hoop in the highest esteem, because it symbolized strength and unity. Many symbols started around the hoop, and one of these symbols is the dream catcher.
- Dream catchers of twigs, sinew, and feathers have been woven since ancient times by Ojibwa people. They were woven by the grandfathers and grandmothers for newborn children and hung above the cradleboard to give the infants peaceful, beautiful dreams.
- Originally the Native American dream catcher was woven on twigs of the red willow using thread from the stalk of the stinging nettle. The red willow and twigs from other trees of the willow family, as well as red twig dogwood can be found in many parts of the United States. These twigs are gathered fresh and dried in a circle or pulled into a spiral shape depending upon their intended use. They used natural feathers and semi-precious gemstone, one gemstone to each web because there is only one creator in the web of life
- Long ago when the word was sound, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and searcher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language. As he spoke, Iktomi the spider picked up the elder's willow hoop which had feathers, horsehair, beads and offerings on it, and began to spin a web. He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life, how we begin our lives as infants, move on through childhood and on to adulthood. Finally we go to old age where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle.
- In the course of becoming popular outside of the Ojibwa Nation, and then outside of the pan-Indian communities, "dreamcatchers" are now made, exhibited, and sold commercially all oover the world. This is supposedly considered by most traditional Native Americans to be an undesirable form of cultural appropriation
TOTEM POLES
- A pole is a symbol of unity, tradition and pride. It represents a family's histories, relationships, stories, beliefs and experiences.
- A pole shows animals and mythical figures associated with a family - they are called crests. They were not religious icons.
- The humans, animals and supernatural beings carved on the pole are called crests. They generally represent a family's ancestors or the supernatural beings those ancestors encountered. The family inherit the right to represent these crests on their pole as symbols of identity and records of their family history.
- Crest art is everywhere on the Northwest Coast - carved on poles and masks, woven into fabrics, painted onto boxes and tattooed onto the body. They are closely linked with First Nations' political and social systems, and are displayed duringpotlatches and other ceremonies.
- Totem poles are monumental sculptures carved from large trees, mostly Western Red Cedar, by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America.
- The word totem is derived from the Ojibwe word odoodem, "his kinship group".
- Totem poles were never objects of worship, they seemed only occasionally to generate allusions or illustrate stories, and were usually left to rot in place when people abandoned a village.
- The vertical order of images is widely believed to be a significant representation of importance. This idea is so pervasive that it has entered into common parlance with the phrase "low man on the totem pole." This phrase is indicative of the most common belief of ordering importance, that the higher figures on the pole are more important or prestigious
NATIVE AMERICAN SYMBOLS
- Most symbols & designs represent specific ideas or cultural expressions, but many are only slightly related & some not at all.
- The descriptions and definitions have come from traditional stories, opinions of artists & reservation traders
- The Clouds, Rain & Lightning. Representing themselves. They are important symbols for change, renewal & fertility. Related to snow which is a higher blessing than rain.
- The Morning Star. The brightest star on the dawn's horizon. Considered an important spirit and honored as a kachina with most Pueblo Indians. Plains and the Great Basin Indians honored it as a sign of courage and purity of spirit.
- The Sun. Life giver. Warmth, growth, and all that is good & well. The style shown is the sun used as a kachina mask. Many styles are seen in all of the Southwestern Indian cultures. "Rays" signifying the 4 directions are seen in some of these styles.
- The Hand. Representing the presence of man. His work, his acheivements & his history.
- So many different depiction’s of arrows are used. They usually symbolize direction, force, movement, power and direction of travel, also the pathway of the breath, the life force of the animal spirit, called the "heart line"
- Feathers. Symbols of prayers, sources of ideas or marks of honor. Representing the Creative Force, and are taken from birds with the attribute for which they might be used: goose flight feathers to fledge an arrow. Geese are known for their long flights; Eagle feathers for honor & connect the user with the Creator.
- The Frog. Water animal, implies renewal, fertility & springtime.
- The Bear. Protector. Physical strength & leadership. Frequently mentioned as "first helper" in creation & emergence stories.
PATTERNS AND BEADWORK
- Beadwork is an art form that has a long tradition in Native American cultures. The use of glass beads by Native Americans began after contact with Europeans.
- Glass beads come in a myriad of colors, with popular colors being blue, green, red, white, and black, and are used in weaving and applique techniques, although some larger beads can be strung on the ends of fringes or necklaces.
- All manners of items, from clothing and containers to ceremonial pieces, are decorated using beads.
- Beadwork continues to be created today by Native Americans using traditional methods.
- Weaving Pattern. Navajo weavers create beautiful, bold patterns. Many are partly controlled by the limitations of their vertical looms.
- Many symbols of the natural world are often combined in with the patterns
- Navajo Storm Style. Many of the Navajo patterns are followed closely by weaving families, while other designs are created fresh each time. A few designs are similar to designs seen in Plains Beadwork and paintings.
- Border Patterns. Used by weavers and silversmiths alike to establish boundaries and as designs in their own right.
- Native American patterns and designs have symbolic meanings. The patterns are often repeated, representing the repetitive nature of our lives.
- The different designs are made up of one or more symbols to suggest hope and intent, to communicate with the Great Spirit and to identify certain roles and responsibilities or to record stories.
- Though some patterns and designs vary from one tribe to another, several designs and patterns have common meanings across the Native American culture.
RELIGION/MYTHOLOGY
- Native American religion is closely connected to the land in which Native Americans dwell and the supernatural
- While there are many different Native American religious practices, most address the following areas of supernatural concern: an omnipresent, invisible universal force, pertaining to the "three 'life crises' of birth, puberty, and death", spirits, visions, the shaman and communal ceremony.
- Native American religions tend to be carried out mainly in a family or tribal location first and are better explained as more of a process or journey than a religion.
- For Native Americans, religion is never separated from one's daily life unlike Western cultures where religion is experienced privately and gradually integrated into one's public life. Conversation about theology and religion, even within their society, is extremely limited but to live and breathe is to worship.
- All of creation has life. Rocks, trees, mountains, and everything that is visible lives and is part of creation and therefore has life which must be respected.
- God is known indirectly through an awareness of the relationships or links between various aspects of both the physical and supernatural realms. Spirituality of the Native Americans makes no distinction between these realms; the living and dead, visible and invisible, past and present, and heaven and earth.
- Most adherents to traditional American Indian ways do not see their spiritual beliefs and practices as a "religion"; rather, they see their whole culture and social structure as infused with 'spirituality' - an integral part of their lives and culture.
HALLUCINOGENICS
- Peyote has a long history of ritualistic and medicinal use by Native Americans. It flowers from March through May, and sometimes as late as September. The flowers are pink, with thigmotactic anthers.
- Lophophora williamsii, better known by its common name Peyote, is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline.
- The effects last about 10 to 12 hours. Peyote is reported to trigger states of "deep introspection and insight" that have been described as being of a metaphysical or spiritual nature. At times, these can be accompanied by rich visual or auditory effects.
- In addition to psychoactive use, some Native American tribes use the plant for its curative properties. They employ peyote to treat such varied ailments as toothache, pain in childbirth, fever, breast pain, skin diseases, rheumatism, diabetes, colds, and blindness.
- American Indians in more widespread regions to the north began to use peyote in religious practices, as part of a revival of native spirituality.
- Native Americans refer to peyote as "the sacred medicine", and use it to combat spiritual, physical, and other social ills.
- Concerned about the drug's psychoactive effects, between the 1880s and 1930s, U.S. authorities attempted to ban Native American religious rituals involving peyote, including the Ghost Dance.
- Today the Native American Church is one among several religious organizations to use peyote as part of its religious practice.
- Peyote is either chewed, boiled in a liquid for drinking, or rolled into pellets that are swallowed. The uses of peyote parallel those of the hallucinogenic mushrooms. Mescaline produces visions and changes in perception, and users experience a state of intoxication and happiness.
HUNTING
- Although the Plains Indians hunted other animals, such as elk or antelope, bison was the primary game food source.
- Before horses were introduced, hunting was a more complicated process. The Native Americans would surround the bison, and then try to herd them off cliffs or into places where they could be more easily killed.
- A commonly used technique was the Piskin method. The tribesmen would build a corral and have people herd the bison into it to confine them in a space where they could be killed. The Plains Indians constructed a v-shaped funnel, about a mile long, made of fallen trees, rocks, etc. Sometimes bison could be lured into a trap by one of the tribe covering himself with a bison skin and imitating the call of the animals.
- Before their adoption of guns, the Plains Indians hunted with spears, bows and arrows, and various forms of clubs.
- With horses, the Plains Indians had the means and speed to stampede or overtake the bison. The Plains Indians reduced the length of their bows to three feet to accommodate their use on horseback.
- hey continued to use bows and arrows after the introduction of firearms, because guns took too long to reload and were too heavy.
- In the summer, many tribes gathered for hunting in one place. The main hunting seasons were fall, summer, and spring. In winter harsh snow and mighty blizzards made it almost impossible to kill the bison.
- Bison were hunted almost to extinction in the 19th century and were reduced to a few hundred by the mid-1880s. The main reason they were hunted was for their skins, with the rest of the animal left behind to decay on the ground. After the animals rotted, their bones were collected and shipped back east in large quantities.
- The Plains Indians wore bison skins in the winter. The women in the tribe mended the clothes. They used buffalo sinew for thread.
- There were two ways to prepare a buffalo hide. The women could tan it or leave it as rawhide. To tan it, the woman would scrape the hair off the buffalo and then soak the hide in a mixture of brains and liver.
CLOTHING
- The Plains Indians wore bison skins in the winter. The women in the tribe mended the clothes. They used buffalo sinew for thread.
- Buckskins are clothing, usually consisting of a jacket and leggings, made from buckskin, a soft sueded leather from the hide of deer or elk.
- Buckskins are often trimmed with a fringe — originally a functional detail, to allow the garment to dry faster when it was soaking wet because the fringe acted as a series of wicks to disperse the water — or quills.
- Buckskins were popular with Native Americans and other frontiersmen for their warmth and durability.
- Traditional Native American clothing varied widely from tribe to tribe, but one nearly universal element was the moccasin, a sturdy slipper-shaped type of shoe sewn from tanned leather.
- All American Indian moccasins were originally made of soft leather stitched together with sinew.
- hough the basic construction of Native American moccasins was similar throughout North America, moccasin patterns were subtly different in nearly every tribe, and Indian people could often tell each other's tribal affiliation simply from the design of their shoes.
- In some tribes hardened rawhide was used for the sole for added durability, and in others rabbit fur (or, later, sheepskin) was used to line the leather moccasins for added warmth.
- Most Native American women wore skirts and leggings, though the length, design, and material of the skirts varied from tribe to tribe. In some Indian cultures women's shirts were optional and were usually treated more like coats, while in others, women always wore tunics or mantles in public. And in other tribes women usually wore one-piece dresses instead.
- Most tribes used cloaks in colder weather, but some of the northern tribes wore Inuit-style fur parkas instead. Most variable of all were headgear and formal clothing, which were different in nearly every tribe.
INFLUENCE ON MODERN FASHION AND DESIGN
- We saw it first with the arrival of fringe boots and bags, but now we are seeing an undeniable Native American influence on some of high fashions best collections.
- Designers like Anna Sui, Alexander McQueen, and Gucci all have pieces that speak to the first people of America.
- The look has a strong link to nature – the wild side of nature, as well as its free-spirited face.
- This look has a bit of a bohemian feel but it’s more defined. A refreshing, and intriguing style.
- Large proportions of the native community make fun of everyone who sells into the commercial side.
- GARY OKER is a Canadian Native Fashion Designer who incorporates SYMBOLS of Native culture into his designs. The designs are inspired by earth, animals, water and air. To continue his evolutionary visions of connecting the past to the present, he searches for symbolic knowledge and applies these insights to his life's work.
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