Quill Art

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

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.

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.
2 George Bird Grinnell, The Cheyenne Indians, Vol. II (Omaha: University of Ne braska, 1972), p. 245.
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.
4 Lyford, p. 78.
Ibid.
Georgiana Brown Harkeson, American Needlework (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1938), p. 7.
Lyford, p. 78.
Mari Sandoz, Cheyenne Autumn (New York: MoGraw-Hill, 1953), p. 180.
Peter J. Powell, “The Enduring Beauty of Cheyenne Art, The American West, Ju- ly 1973, p. 9.
10 Grinnell, Vol. I, p. 168.
11 Grinnell, Vol. I, p. 160.
12 Grinnell, Vol. I, p. 163.
13 Powell, p. 9.
14 Harkeson, p. 3.
15 Lyford, p. 66 and p. 37.
16 Sandoz, p. 36.
17 Harkeson, p. 7.

Carolyn Berry is an artist and writer. She directs a sheltered workshop for handicapped adults in Monterey, California. 113