The Native American Couture, pt. 1: skins on skin. Or, the peek-a-boo chic...

Last month there was something of an uproar here in town when a party promoter proposed what would be an ill-fated, or at least ill-themed, Thanksgiving food drive at a local club.  The name of the party was originally slated to be  "Pocahotass" and it invited fashion-forward attendees to dress up, more or less, as Pilgrims & Indians. 

And while I suspect the initial intention of the gay promoters was one of innocence (coupled with an overwhelming desire to wear feathers), probably little more than to invoke the sort of celebratory, elementary-school playfulness most likely apparent the last time any of us actually did dress up as Pilgrims and Indians, naturally the event was immediately seized upon by critics who vociferously dubbed the entire affair far too exploitative and insensitive.  Well, in retrospect I suppose anyone could have, or should have, seen that coming.  Apparently in this world of ours there is simply no room for the canned good-collecting homosexual dancing in feathered headress - unless of course it's of the Vegas showgirl variety.  But still the reality remains: nobody really wants to dress like a Pilgrim and anyone, with any style, would rather dress like an Indian.  Or I'll just say this: that in the classical Native American costume there is a certain style, a flair, and a materiality that today's fashion queen likely wants to explore in greater depth...

As Lewis and Clark make their historic journey across the continent, they are in almost constant company with Native Americans along the way: the Mandans and Minnetarees of the upper Missouri river, the Shonshonee, the Nez Perces, the various Chinnook tribes along the Columbia to the Pacific.  Many of the tribes, particularly those around the Rockies, are isolated from both the "white" settlements of the East and the maritime trade along the Pacific coast, and have never encountered a European before.  They are, however, generally cognizant of their existence, and in some cases posses possibly second and third-generation traded goods from Spanish colonials and frontiersmen to their south (I am guessing in Colorado).  Both Lewis and Clark take copious notes about what they encounter on their long journey, and the appearance, dress, and customs of the natives are no exception.

 The Mandan medicine man, Mah-to-he-ha, or Old Bear, painted by George Catlin, 1832 - Smithsonian Collection

 

In my reading of The Journals of Lewis and Clark, I've noted some passages for consideration: ones that illustrate the almost exclusive usage of animal skins in the construction of garments - as these tribes have no means of fiber processing at this time - and their sense of adornment.  But interestingly (or maybe I am just a perv), these passages also reveal the Native American's comparatively racy sense of bodily display - which is to say, more accurately, absence of Judeo-Christian modesty - of which the white explorers were unable to feign ignorance, for better and, as the record I think amusingly shows, sometimes for worse.  That's right, often they were lettin' it all hang out!  And I'll be happy to put the illustrative passages in bold face for the sake of simple sensationalism, but besides that, it is actually interesting to see what constitued the fashion...

Here William Clark shares his sartorial observations among the Nez Perces, who traditionally led a seasonally-nomadic existence through Idaho, Washington, and Oregon.  His entry from October 10, 1805:

The Cho-pun-nish or Pierced nose Indians are Stout likely men, handsom women, and verry dressy in their way,  the dress of the men are a White Buffalo robe or Elk Skin dressed with Beeds which are generally white, Sea Shells & the Mother of Pirl hung to the[i]r hair & on a piece of otter skin about their necks   hair Ceewed in two parsels hanging forward over their Shoulders, feathers, and different Coloured Paints which they find in their Countrey  Generally white, Green & light Blue.  Some fiew were a Shirt of Dressed Skins and long legins & Mockersons Painted, which appear to be their winters dress, with a plat of twisted grass about their Necks.

The women dress in a Shirt of Ibex or Goat [bighorn] Skins which reach quite down to their anckles with a girdle,   their heads are not ornemented.  their Shirts are ornemented with quilled Brass, Small peces of Brass Cut into different forms, Beeds, Shells & curious bones &c.   The men expose those parts which are generally kept from few [view] by other nations but the women are more perticular than any other nation which I have passed [in s[e]creting the parts].

On October 17th, 1805, Clark has an encounter with another group down the road, where the ladies are, apparently, plus-sized and hardly modest. I wonder if this constitutes the 1805 equivalent of a camel toe...?

The Dress of those natives differ but little from those on the Koskoskia and Lewis's rivers, except the women who dress verry different, in as much as those above ware long leather Shirts which [are] highly ornimented with beeds shells &c. &c. and those on the main Columbia river only ware a truss or pece of leather tied around them at their hips and drawn tite between their legs and fastened before So as bar[e]ly to hide those parts which are so sacredly hid & s[e]cured by our women. Those women are more inclined to Co[r]pulency than any we have yet Seen, their eyes are of a Duskey black, their hair of a corse black without orniments of any kind as above.

Shé-de-ah, or Wild Sage, of the Wichita tribe painted by George Catlin, 1834 -Smithsonian Collection

Catlin wrote: “Amongst the women of this tribe, there were many that were exceedingly pretty in feature and in form; and also in expression, though their skins are very dark. … [They] are always decently and comfortably clad, being covered generally with a gown or slip, that reaches from the chin quite down to the ankles, made of deer or elk skins.…"  The Smithsonian adds "The sensual appeal (of this portrait) suggests that the artist was not always an objective observer of Indian life."

I've mentioned before that Lewis is the more gifted writer of the two, and this, perhaps the most sensational of all, does not disappoint. He records on March 19th, 1806, as the expedition prepares to depart the Pacific and make their journey home:

The Killamucks, Clatsops, Chinnooks, Cathlahmahs, and Wic-ki-a-cums resemble each other as well in their persons and dress as in their habits and manners .... The dress of the women  consists of a robe, tissue, and sometimes when the weather is uncommonly cold, a vest. their robe is much smaller than that of the men, never reaching lower than the waist nor extending in front sufficiently to cover the body.  it is like that of the men confined across the breast with a string and hangs loosly over the shoulders and back.  the most esteemed and valuable of these robes are made of strips of the skins of the Sea Otter net together with the bark of the white cedar or silk-grass.  these strips are fist twisted and laid parallel with eath other a little distance assunder, and then net or wove together in such a manner that fur appears equally on both sides, and unites between the strands.  it make[s] a warm and soft covering.  other robes are formed in a similar manner of the skin of the Rackoon, beaver &c.   at other times the skin is dressed in the hair and woarn without any further preparation.  the`vest is always formed in the manner first discribed of their robes and covers the body from the armpits to the waist, and is confined behind, and destitute of straps over the sholder to keep it up.  when this vest is woarn the breast of the woman is concealed. but without it which is almost always the case, they are exposed, and from the habit of remaining loose and unsuspended grow to great length, particularly in aged women in many of whom I have seen the bubby reach as low as the waist.  The garment which occupied the waist, and from thence as low as nearly to the knee before and the ham, behind, cannot properly be denominated a petticoat, in the common acceptation of that term;  it is a tissue of white cedar bark, bruised or broken into small shreds, which are interwoven in the middle  by means of several cords of the same material, which serve as well for a girdle as to hold in place the shreds of bark which form the tissue, and which shreds confined to the middle hang with their ends pendulous from the waist , the whole being of sufficient thickness when the female stands erect to conceal those parts usually covered from formiliar view, but when she stoops or places herself in many other attitudes, this battery of Venus is not altogether impervious to the inquisitive and penetrating eye of the amorite.

Oh, Meriwether Lewis, that's a hell of a way to say you can see a gal's muffin!  But of course though, truly, we like nothing really impervious to the inquisitive and penetrating eye, amorite or otherwise.