Quill Art | LEAF

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 <head><title>Quill Art</title></head> 
 <byline>Carolyn Berry</byline>
 
 Quillwork, the decoration of anima.
 skins with dyed and natural porcupine
 quills, was unique to North American
 Indian culture and practiced only by
 women. This art form probably origin-
 ated in the Great Lakes area and the
 surrounding woodlands. As white inva-
 sion and colonization intensified, the
 various tribes of corn farmers originally
 inhabiting the area migrated west to the
 Plains where eventually their culture
 centered on buffalo hunting. The Chey-
 enne were one such tribe who brought
 with them women s ancient art of quill-
 work.
 A balance of power existed within
 Cheyenne society. Chiefs were men,
 but there were memories of women’s
 holding this position. Cheyenne society
 was matrilineal. Women owned the
 tipis in which they lived with their hus-
 band, daughters, daughters’ husbands
 and unmarried sons. A wealthy man
 could have more than one wife; fre-
 quently sisters married the same man.
 If the first wife didn’t approve of her
 husband’s choice she could divorce
 him, although she might commit sui-
 cide (by hanging herself with her
 braids). Chastity was highly honored;
 girls and women wore the chastity rope.
 Seduction and rape were extremely rare
 (as was murder). Girls puberty was
 celebrated ritually, and women main-
 tained their own societies, traditions,
 religious beliefs and secular position.
 Sharing of work by women made possi-
 ble the long hours necessary for such a
 precise and painstaking art as quill-
 work.
 Quills, obtained from porcupines
 which the men hunted, were removed
 promptly, sorted into different sizes
 and stored in bladder bags. The largest
 and coarsest quills, taken from the tail,
 were used in broad masses of embroid-
 ery. Medium quills came from the back
 of the animal and small ones from the
 neck. The finest were taken from the
 belly and were used for the most deli-
 cate lines so noticeable in the exquisite
 work to be found in early specimens.
 After sorting, the quills were boiled
 with natural dyes usually found locally,
 although Cheyenne would travel great
 distances to find plants needed for par-
 ticular colors. Dye stuffs included
 moss, stones, buffalo-berries, wild
 grapes, cattails, oak bark and many
 other barks, flowers and seeds. The in-
 gredients and process were often kept
 secret. Eventually quills were colored
 with commercial dyes or soak-
 Pair of quilled moccasins
 ed with dyed trade cloth.
 Quills were sewn onto skins Indian, Heye
 tanned by the women; in this
 Foundation
 process, many days long, the
 skin was stretched, scraped,
 bleached, softened and
 stretched once again. Tanning
 tools were handed down by
 women from generation to
 generation. After tanning the
 skins, the woman would cut
 and shape the leather into the object
 she intended to embroider with quills.
 As she worked, the woman held a
 supply of quills in her mouth to soften
 them so they could be flattened. Since
 they would split if punctured, quills
 were held to the skin between rows of
 stitches or with a stitch over each quill.
 Sinew, dried black grass and fine roots
 were used for sewing. The sinew thread
 was kept moist except for one end,
 which was licked, twisted and let dry to
 stiffen. This was then threaded through
 holes made in the hide with an awl. Ex-
 tra sewing supplies were carried in a
 quill-decorated purse trappers called
 possible-sacks, in which women also
 kept small ornaments, medicine, count-
 ers for gambling, plum stones for the
 seed game and clothes for small child-
 ren.
 Countless articles for daily and ritual
 use were embroidered with quills: to-
 bacco and tinder bags, work bags,
 knife cases, cradles, burden straps,
 moccasins, shirts, leggings, arm and leg
 bands, robes, horse trappings, dresses,
 deerskin rolls for braided hair, lodge
 linings, stars for lodges, back-rests, pil-
 lows, lodge sacks, flutes, saddles
 combs, stick rattles for dancing and
 ceremonial gift pipes.
 The two distinct natural surfaces-
 the soft tanned hide and the stiff col-
 ored quills—made an extraordinary
 and beautiful art form. The quills were
 shiny, almost translucent, as if some
 spirit of the animal remained. Later
 when beads were used in many of the
 ancient quill patterns, old people often
 complained that they had no life, that
 beads were dead. Though quills were
 individually small, the mass of a rope
 decorated with them was large and
 glowing, colorfully accentuating the
 wearer's movements.
 Quillwork was not only beautiful but
 conveyed important symbols. To a 
 considerable extent each article de-
 corated had a characteristic design
 which bore some relation to the use of
 the article or the attributes of its
 owner.””3 A quilled bag for a baby to
 handle was suspended from an elabo-
 rately quilled baby-carrier. The bag 
 contained the child’s umbilical cord
 and was carried for her or his life on the
 left side.
 Some designs were specific to either
 women or men. Turtle designs were
 worn only by women. They were “used
 on the yoke of a woman s dress and leg-
 gings and at the head or side of the ba-
 by-carrier or cradle . . . as a talisman.
 The U-shaped design below the yoke of
 the woman s dress represented the
 breast of the turtle, the wing-like exten-
 sions corresponding to the sides of the
 shell. Used symbolically the turtle de-
 sign had power over the diseases pecu-
 liar to women and also over birth and
 infancy.”
 The red line, much used in both
 quill and beadwork, was known as the
 life span or the trail on which woman
 travels, and was regarded as symbolic
 of that portion of a woman s life during
 which children may be born. Red lines
 or stripes on articles used by women
 were often associated with womens
 functions and virtues and symbolized
 the good life.”5 The face of a girl at her
 first menstrual period was painted with
 red lines (or she might be painted red
 all over). Red lines around the edge of a
 lodge indicated that people coming into
 the camp would be fed by the women
 living there.
 In Cheyenne quillwork the majority
 of designs were abstract. They “had
 significance above specific happenings
 and were related to religion. These de-
 signs were composed of symbols which
 followed the pure geometric forms
 woman s art). Later they acquired a
 protective connotation in which a cir-
 cle, spiral or some other motif repre-
 sented the power which would offer
 magical aid or give comfort to the one
 for whom the needlework was made.
 Circles representing the ancient sacred
 circle were used in both women’s and
 men s'art. Women added quilled circles
 to robes as holy protective objects.
 In the art of the Cheyenne (and the
 Sioux) a spiderweb design was quilled
 onto a child’s robe by a medicine wom-
 an as a symbol of power and future
 well-being. Since a spider s work fre-
 quently has been a metaphor for
 women s weaving and embroidery, this
 recurrent design may have had symbol
 ic importance for the Cheyenne. The
 analysis of women s iconography has
 been overlooked in most descriptions of
 their work, which also discount the
 women s style as merely decorative
 because it is abstract.
 When Americans or others
 commissioned an Indian woman to
 quill or bead an object, they often
 expected a replica of something
 beautiful they had seen and ad-
 mired. The showman Buffalo Bill
 asked a famous Cheyenne woman,
 “The Bead Woman, to make a dec-
 orated shirt for him, but was unhap-
 py with it because it was a floral de-
 sign. When he ordered another one
 <pb facs="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/BucknellDSC/heresies/main/issue04/images/Heresies_04_116.jpg" n="116" xml:id="img_0116"/>
 <caption>Woman with smoother, Mrs. E.C. Grinnell, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation</caption>
 
 from another Cheyenne woman he was
 again disappointed. He was not aware
 that “the Cheyenne designs are a sa-
 cred trust that comes down the wom-
 an’s line, to be used only for full-
 bloods.
 As quillworkers women participated
 in creating ritually important objects.
 They worked with the men in the crea-
 tion of scalp shirts which held the hair
 of enemies killed and horses wounded
 in battle. Only the bravest men could
 possess them, and only the most moral
 women decorated them. Men hunted
 the animal and women tanned the skin.
 Men painted the shirt and women quill-
 ed or beaded the panels with sacred de-
 signs. Each did the work under strict
 supervision of an honored person of
 their sex who had done the work before
 and was ritually approved.
 Sacred quillwork was permitted only
 to members of the Quillworkers Society
 which, like the Women’s War Society,
 consisted of the most courageous and
 skilled women, known as Mon in i heo,
 the selected ones.1° Quillwork “must be
 done in prescribed ceremonial fashion.
 and the (initiate must be taught to per-
 form it by some member Jof the Socie-
 tyj who had previously done the same
 thing. The making and offering of such
 a robe [or other item) in the prescribec
 way secured the maker admission to the
 Society of women who had done similar
 things.”11 A candidate would announce
 her intention to embellish a certain
 item, usually to bring protection to a
 child or warrior or to fulfill a sacred
 vow. If the Society approved, a crier
 announced the plan to the tribe.
 The woman prepared a feast for
 members of the Society. These individ-
 uals reviewed past creations—the de-
 signs and the circumstances—very
 much as warriors recounted their
 coups. After the feast an old woman
 was asked to make the design for the
 robe, which she drew on the skin with a
 stick and white clay.12 Throughout the
 long period of work to make the robe or
 other objects there were many strict ob-
 servances. If the woman made a
 mistake in sewing, a brave man who
 had counted many coups was called 
 upon. Reciting his experiences, he slip-
 ped his knife under the sinew to cut the
 thread. The completion of the object
 was announced by the crier of the Soci-
 ety and ceremonies followed.
 <caption>Northern Cheyenne dress made of cloth with
 cowrie and dentalium shells (Museum of the
 American Indian, Heye Foundation)</caption>
 Cheyenne tradition respected the
 Quillworkers Society whose “origins
 were sacred, for their ritual and cere-
 monies came from the Man who mar-
 ried the Buffalo Wife. The traditions
 concerning the Buffalo Wife are, in
 turn, linked to the coming of the Sun
 Dance ceremonies from the Buffalo
 people themselves.13 Part of the
 strength and power that enabled the
 women to do the work emanated from-
 the sacred bundle associated with the
 Society." Their work was so important
 that a warrior could count coups on a
 completed work under certain condi-
 tions.
 Glass beads and woolen and cotton
 cloth became valued trade items for the
 Plains tribes. As early as 1595 Euro-
 peans were considering what color
 beads provided the best rate of ex
 change.15 Women adopted beads for
 traditional and innovated designs. By
 1850 cloth was replacing skins for use
 as robes or being combined with skin
 on various articles.16 Quilling was the
 preferred way to embellish highly religious objects, even after beadwork had
 become popular.
 Around the time the tribe was being
 relocated in Oklahoma (Indian Ter-
 ritory), many fine old pieces were trad-
 ed for horses, especially when one
 group, the Northern Cheyenne, started
 returning to its native lands. Traders,
 aware of how extraordinary these ob-
 jects were, had begun to obtain them in
 the mid-19th century and maybe earli-
 er. It is remarkable that any of the fra-
 gile quillwork survived the years of
 warfare and relocations during which
 the Cheyenne struggled for their very
 existence as a culture. Because of the
 reverence in which sacred quillwork
 was held, skins decorated with ceremo-
 nial symbols were handed down for
 centuries from one generation to
 another.1
 Today Cheyenne women make bead-
 work in the old way, but it is slow, as it
 has always been. No one doubts its val-
 ue or beauty, but the women say no one
 will pay for the labor necessary to make
 elaborate pieces with customary care.
 Despite the difficulty for Cheyenne
 women of obtaining materials and the
 necessity of their selling work for in-
 come, the Beadworkers Society still
 sponsors women’s honored work, con-
 tinuing traditional tribal values. Its ex-
 istence reflects the strength of Chey-
 enne women—particularly as a force
 for maintaining their culture in the rap-
 idly-changing world in which they now
 live.
 
 William C. Orchard, The Technique of
 Porcupine Quill Decoration among the Indi-
 ans of North America (New York: Museum
 of the American Indian, Heye Foundation,
 1971 (1916)), p. 9.<lb/>
 2 George Bird Grinnell, The Cheyenne
 Indians, Vol. II (Omaha: University of Ne
 braska, 1972), p. 245.<lb/>
 3 Carrie H. Lyford, Quill and Beadwork
 of the Western Sioux (Washington, D.C.:
 U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of
 Indian Affairs, Division of Education,
 1940), p. 78.<lb/>
 4 Lyford, p. 78.<lb/>
 Ibid.<lb/>
 Georgiana Brown Harkeson, American
 Needlework (New York: Coward-McCann,
 Inc., 1938), p. 7.<lb/>
 Lyford, p. 78.<lb/>
 Mari Sandoz, Cheyenne Autumn (New
 York: MoGraw-Hill, 1953), p. 180.<lb/>
 Peter J. Powell, “The Enduring Beauty
 of Cheyenne Art, The American West, Ju-
 ly 1973, p. 9.<lb/>
 10 Grinnell, Vol. I, p. 168.<lb/>
 11 Grinnell, Vol. I, p. 160.<lb/>
 12 Grinnell, Vol. I, p. 163.<lb/>
 13 Powell, p. 9.<lb/>
 14 Harkeson, p. 3.<lb/>
 15 Lyford, p. 66 and p. 37.<lb/>
 16 Sandoz, p. 36.<lb/>
 17 Harkeson, p. 7.
 
 Carolyn Berry is an artist and writer. She directs a
 sheltered workshop for handicapped adults in Monterey,
 California.
 113
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