An Early and Rare Cree Quilled And Fringed Hide Costume

the coat, resembling a European frock coat, elaborately painted on the front and back in yellow, red, green and black pigments with alternating bands enclosing hourglass designs and concentric circular medallions, flanked by rows of circles in alternating colors, hide strips forming epaulettes on the shoulders decorated with green glass beadwork and loom quilled panels of geometric devices in red, green and black on an ivory ground, trimmed with quill-wrapped pendants in similar colors, four brass buttons sewn on the chest; together with a pair of similarly decorated leggings and mittens.

Acquired by Major Edward Barwick, England, early 19^th Century

By family descent to Miss Janet Farrar, Leeds, England, 1991

Acquired from the above

The Cincinnati Art Museum: “A Window on the Past,” October 18, 2002 – March 30, 2003

John W. Painter, American Indian Artifacts: The John Painter Collection, 1991, pp. 173 - 177, no. 213A, illustrated

John W. Painter, A Window on the Past: Early Native American Dress from the John Painter Collection, 2002, Cincinnati Art Museum, pp. 8 – 10, no. 1, illustrated

For a related example please see The Spirit Sings: Artistic Traditions of Canada’s First Peoples. The Glenbow Museum, 1987, pp. 75 – 78: “The winter clothing of men in the central subarctic was… layered, consisting of a “Cloase Coate nes’t their skin and a Loose coate over flying open before." Documented examples of [the skin painted clothing traditions of this region] are extremely rare…. Central subarctic skin painting was extremely geometric, composed of stripes, circles, crosses, squares and triangles. A combination of solid elements and linear border designs was used. Elaborate ornaments of woven and netted quillwork were also applied to the shoulder seams, neck and wrist edges of coats (Figure 66)….Central Cree Coats were less tailored than those of the Naskapi and were decorated with rectilinear patterns and rows of repeated geometric motifs. Elaborate quilled ornaments were attached to the cuffs, shoulders and necks…Attached quilled ornamentation on clothing was a long-standing tradition throughout the subarctic.

For Woodlands people, the wearing of hide clothing was in itself an act imbued with meaning. Animals were believed to give their skins to human beings voluntarily, and the decoration of the skins honoured the animals. In the Eastern Subarctic – and probably throughout the Woodlands – people believed that power could be transferred from the animal to a human wearer through the proper treatment of the animal’s skin.

Although European trade goods were incorporated into aboriginal clothing and ornament very soon after contact – and in some areas even before direct contact – for many years these materials enriched rather than altered existing clothing traditions. European cloth, metal, and beads at first appeared as almost magical substances, imbued with the same beauty and power as the gifts of the spirits.”

Also see John G. Honigmann, “West Main Cree” pp. 220 – 221 in Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 6, Subarctic, Smithsonian Institution, 1981.