The Native American Couture, pt. 2: mad about beads; wherein the author discourses additionally on the occasional uselessness of European currency and its interesting consequences.

It's not uncommon to hear disparaging commentary on the beads-for-land trade that opened the island of Manhattan for European colonization.  At least not if one hangs out with liberal-minded, hyper-educated types (and here I'll ask, why wouldn't you?).  The transaction in question occurred between the Dutch and the indigenous Lenni Lenape tribe in 1626, and apparently cross-cultural misunderstanding ruled the day: the Dutch thought they were making an outright purchase; the natives - possessing no concept of personal land ownership - instead "interpreted the trade goods as gifts given in appreciation for the right to share the land."  And the goods that secured the transaction - be it for tenancy or outright ownership - consisted of a bag of  "beads and trinkets" valued then at 60 Dutch guilders.  I don't know that one could even buy a string of beads in Manhattan for that today, though back then I am sure it made for a fairly sizable bag.  But what I think is interesting - especially for people like ourselves, whose every consuming move is governed and facilitated by ethereal, fiat currencies like the US$, and who are generally removed from any sort of barter or commodity-for-commodity trade - is not the price, but the means of payment: firstly, that the Dutch did not settle the account in guilders, or even plain old gold for that matter, and secondly, that they paid primarily in beads.

So apparently it's true: money really doesn't buy everything, though it seems likely everything still has its price.  I'm not an economist (just the alumnus of a sophomore Principles of Macroeconomics course, the sole sparking interest in which I took in the British economist John Maynard Keynes, his bisexuality, and his involvement in the Bloomsbury group), but what it really comes down to, and perhaps you will agree, is this: a unit of exchange only has liquidity if both parties imbue it with value in relatively equal measure.  Which is to ask, what the hell is a Lenni Lenape going to spend a guilder on in 1626?  What, for that matter, are they going to do with a gold coin short of flip it or wear it, or flip it to see who gets to wear it?

An interesting example of the very non-European non-primacy of gold comes from the Spanish conquest of "New Spain".  When the conquistador Hernán Cortés made his entrada into the Aztec-dominated lands we now know as Mexico, although the Spaniards could easily be diagnosed as suffering from a robust case of gold fever, the Aztecs, while rich in the shiny commodity, did not value it above all others.  The Aztecs - who were quite terrific with feathers and wore them to no end  - actually valued the feather of the Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno) most of all.  Diplomatic offerings were sent to the conquistadors as they approached Tenochtitlan from the gulf, including quantities of the coveted quetzal feathers, to demonstrate the wealth, power, and opulence of the Aztec emperor.  But of course a gold-hungry Spaniard had no cultural impetus whatsoever to reciprocate in appreciation.  I mean, really, what if aliens invaded and we tried to appease them with offerings of Louis Vuitton handbags?

European School portrait of Montezuma II - note the feather work on the outside of his cloak and shield. I've always been especially fond of the orange and blue coloration of this painting, as well.

In an earlier post I wrote of Indian sign language being the lingua franca of the North American continent: an effective means of communication that could successfully carry one, more or less, across the comparatively primitive, polyglot "wilderness," from sea to shining sea.   Obviously in a world without traveler's checks, or even formal currency for that matter, paying one's way along the journey presents a challenge, and from the Dutch experience we already see that beads could open doors.  Similar valuation of beads is found throughout the Lewis and Clark journals, from which I can comfortably say that they were the most universally accepted trade commodity, and indeed paid many an expense as the expedition made its way from St. Louis to the Pacific and back again.  Of course the natives were also keen on procuring guns, axes, kettles, metal tools, blankets, and tobacco - but beads in particular seem to have been a hit.  Possibly because they are such fun to wear (I mean, they are hardly essential to living), and the Native Americans of course had a terrific sense for personal adornment.  Beads one can work with, guilders one cannot.

As Clark and the expedition make their way along the Columbia river, he takes time to reflect on the primacy of the bead among the salmon-fishing tribes living along its banks. His journal entry of November 1, 1805, really hints at the widespread currency of beads:

...however they git in return for those articles Blue and white beeds copper Kettles, brass arm bands, some scarlet and blue robes and a fiew articles of old clothes, they prefer beeds to any thing, and will part with the last mouthfull of articles of clothing they have for a fiew of those beeds, those beeds the[y] traffic with Indians Still higer up this river for roabs, Skins, cha-pel-el [biscuitroot] bread, beargrass &c. who in turn trafick with those under the rockey mountains for Beargrass, quarmash roots & robes &c.

Clearly there is widespread currency in beads.  And I'll also add here, though it is not entirely relevant, that I suspect beads were much prettier in 1805, or at least of more consistent integrity - when everything was naturally derived, handmade, and American Indian apparel was the apparel of everyday life and not costume for the odd pow wow.  No artificially dyed feathers or plastic beads here, paleface.

Portrait of Shó-me-kós-see, or "The Wolf", of the Kansa tribe.  Painted by George Catlin in 1832. From the Smithsonian collection.

Beads were often worn copiously - on strands and integrated into complex mixed-media accessories as well.  Returning from the Pacific, Clark notes the appearance of the Choppunish, or Nez Percés (from the French for "pierced nose").  His journal entry from May 7th 1806:

The orniments worn by the Chopunnish are, in their nose a single shell of Wampom, the pirl & beeds are suspended from the ears. beads are worn arround their wrists, neck, and over their shoulders crosswise in the form of a double sash. the hair of the men is cewed in two rolls which hang on each side in front of the body. Collars of bears claws are also common; but the article of dress that in which they appear to bestow most pains and orniments is a kind of collar or breastplate; this is most commonly a strip of otter skins of about six inches wide taken out of the center of the skin its whole length including the head. this is dressed with the hair on. this is tied around the neck & hangs in front of the body the tail frequently reaching below their knees; on this skin in front is attatched pieces of pirl, beeds, wampom, pices of red cloth and in short whatever they conceive most valuable or ornamental.

Bear fur and claws are particularly valued in apparel as the bears of the west - especially the grizzly - were dangerously aggressive and extremely hard to kill.  Lewis and Clark, armed with shotguns and accustomed to the more docile black bears of the East, underestimated the temper and might of the grizzlies and were surprised to find that felling one often required both multiple gunshots and a hell of a lot of running for your life until the bear finally dropped.  Needless to say, gunless and armed with just bow and arrow, the indigenous Americans were not keen to take them on and so to actually fell a bear was considered an accomplishment and by extension, seemingly, to sport the trophy of such a kill, high status.

The noted warrior Shon ta yi ga, or "Little Wolf" of the Iowa tribe - painted by George Catlin, 1844. Note the abundance of beads, as well as the formidable bear claw necklace.

Here's a truly interesting passage, one where William Clark pretty much spells out the value of beads to his American Indian associates in no uncertain terms.  He also describes some of the more gruesome and curious accessory choices of the Nez Percés, and again I will put the more sensational details in boldface, since that's the sort of person I am. From his entry dated May 1th, 1806:

...they do not appear to be much devoted to baubles as most of the nations we have met with, but seem anxious always to recive articles of utility, such as knives, axes, Kittles, blankets & mockerson awls. blue beeds however may form and exception to this remark; This article among all the nations of this country may be justly compared to gold and silver among civilized nations. They are generally well clothed in their stile. Their dress consists of a long shirt which reaches to the middle of the leg, long legins which reach as high as the waist, mockersons & robe. those are formed of various skins and are in all respects like those of the Shoshone. Their orniments consists of beeds, shells and pieces of brass variously attached to their dress, to their ears arround their necks wrists arms &c. a band of some kind usially serounds the head, this is most frequently the skin of some fir animal as the fox otter &c. I observed a tippet worn by Hohastillpilp, which was formed of Humane scalps and ornemented with the thumbs and fingers of several men which he had slain in battle, they also were a coller or breastplate of otter skin ornimneted with shells beeds & quills. the women brade their hair in two tresses which hang in the same position of those of the men, which ar[e] cewed and hand over each shoulder &c.

 A tippet, by the way - and I had to research it myself - is a sort of long scarf that wraps over the shoulders and hangs down the front on either side, such as one finds in the vestments of certain types of clergy, though the natives' were made from skins.  Would you wear one? Would you wear one covered with thumbs and fingers?  Well, maybe...

Another terrifically curious example of the occasional worthlessness of European currency is one that culturally and stylistically still touches our lives very much today.  In the early years of global maritime trade - when state-chartered companies like the East India Company (founded 1600 by Elizabeth I) and its Dutch equivalent, the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (of 1602) were sending ships on the astonishingly long voyage around the cape of Africa and on to ports in Asia - the initial goods for acquisition were spices.  The appetite of the European market for which simply could not be satiated, and historically many fortunes were made trying. 

Many desired varieties of spices came from the "Spice Islands" of Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and though the European ships set sale with stores of gold to make their purchase, the producing tribes of the islands were basically pre-literate and without currency - and they found no utility whatsoever in gold, either.  Again, what does a guilder buy you in the jungle?  So spices-for-gold was a no go, however the natives would trade for more practical items, particularly textiles.   And so the trade became triangular: European ships would exchange gold for textiles in India, then sail to the islands to trade Indian textiles for spices, then return to Europe to resell the spices for gold on the European market.  Problem solved.

But thanks to the success of the spice trade, another market was opened as its accidental bi-product: some of these spice-heavy ships started returning home also with leftover remnants of Indian textiles.  The directors of these trading companies - and I am quite sure their wives, too - got a look at the colors and the patterns and basically said, "These. Are. Fabulous."   And so shortly ships began returning laden with textiles as well, which in turn introduced the Tree of Life design to Europe and European craftsmen, which is pretty much the common evolutionary ancestor to every piece of large-scaled floral patterned chintz to which we somewhat reflexively accredit today as the backbone and basis of the "English country look".  French merchants especially came to appropriate the Indian design motifs as they soon realized, amidst great demand, it was far more profitable to domestically manufacture Indienne-style knock-offs than to actually go to the expense of importing them for resale - and this is why "French Provencial" textiles are often a curious combination of European flora mixed with Eastern design elements such as paisleys and palmettes...

(Yeah, I basically ache to write scads on this - in my esteem a fascinating and antique sort of cross-culturalism - but that will have to wait until after I finish up with Lewis & Clark, which I assure you is only going to get freakier...)

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. 

The colonial home: rather smoky, mostly smells bad...

One of my obsessions of the moment is the fragrant Bayberry (Myrica) plant and its applications, because last month for my birthday I took a trip through Virginia and stopped off at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation there in Charlottesville surrounds.  In the museum shop they sell, among quite a few things, bars of 18th century style soaps and one variety of which is Bayberry scented.  And though it is more my style to purchase books for souvenirs than scented soaps, I found myself so recurrently drawn to the fragrance that I eventually dispensed with $1.75 for a three ounce bar.  Not a bad deal in the scheme of things.  And later when I made it to Williamsburg, I found the merchants there handily stocked in the old-style soaps as well.  But actually I don't want to write about soaps; I want to write about candles...

When you tour a place like Williamsburg, one thing they don't tell you is that interiors of the American Colonial period likely stank of rancid beef fat.  At least after dark anyway.  That's because the candles of the era were, overwhelmingly, made of wicks dipped in beef tallow, and not the (alternately inodorous or intentionally-scented) waxes to which we are accustomed today.  And the beef tallow candle not only smelled badly but was a rather smoky burn as well. "Early to bed, early to rise..." penned Benjamin Franklin, but frankly despite the tri-partite promise of health, wealth, and wisdom, it probably wasn't much of a pleasurable to stay up after dark otherwise...

Throughout the year each colonial household saved up their tallow in preparation of the annual candle making day, a chore apparently so onerous (or at least odious) that there was plenty of opportunity for professional candle makers, or chandlers, to either contract the work from individual households or set up shop and sell pre-made goods -  much to the irritation of neighbors since the manufacture was a smelly business.  Otherwise candle making, though now popular and charming as an educational Colonial reenactment, was actually again very smelly and generally took over the entirety of the smallish colonial house for its completion. Most households preferred to make all of their candles for the year in the course of a day, for a variety of reasons: as the aging of the tapers throughout the following year caused them to burn more slowly, no one wanted to run out of candles at an inopportune moment, and otherwise making them was generally considered a shitty thing best over and done with.

But at some point in our history, some Native Americans said to some colonists, more or less, "Here, smell this bush. It's fabulous..."  And so the European was irrevocably turned-on to the indigenous American Bayberry bush (probably Myrica pensylvanica, or perhaps Myrica gale, which also grows in the Northeast as well as Canada).  The smell of Bayberry I would describe as mildly spicy, perhaps with a faint note of mint, and the berries themselves are thickly coated with an aromatic natural wax.  Apparently few animals are metabolically equipped to digest the waxy berry - the Yellow Rumped Warbler (Dendroica coronata) being the notable exception, thus allowing the plant's seeds to be dispersed about the landscape in the Warbler's droppings - another of Nature's little arrangements.

The Bayberry wax can be boiled off the berries and colonists soon realized it could be effectively used for candle making, especially since the resulting product not only doesn't smoke and stink of old beef fat but actually burns clearly and pleasantly scents the air.  Unfortunately it takes quite a quantity of berries to make a candle - 15 lbs. of berries yields 1 lb. of wax - so while immediately popular, Bayberry candles were expensive and likely destined for select usage.  Still, a definite improvement to any upscale colonial home. 

I see today that though the marketplace is predominantly stocked with the economical "Bayberry-scented" candles, there are still available the occasional genuine Bayberry wax candles.  In fact there is something of a lore that has been cultivated in their marketing as a holiday tradition, that "Bayberry candles burned to the socket, puts luck in the home, food in the larder, and gold in the pocket"  (or variants on that theme; also note that this one is not even grammatically correct).  Specifically they are to be burned in-full on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.  This is attributed to Colonial era tradition, but I am not entirely convinced of the authenticity of the claim, since the world has generally been lousy with superstitions of questionable provenance and today particularly ones that facilitate holiday product consumption.  (Also, I think the twelfth day of Christmas, or Feast of Epiphany, would play a role in this sort of old tradition, though hand-dripped candles are generally sold in uncut pairs.)  However, I am quite interested in burning some genuine Bayberry wax candles, for the holidays if necessary, so if anyone feels inclined to forward a pair in the name of scientific and sociological inquiry, I will be pleased to accept them and duly report my findings...