[NATIVE AMERICAN] c. 1900 Blackfoot Boy’s Beaded Armbands with Ermine Pendants

A Pair of Blackfoot Boy’s Beaded Hide Armbands. Northern Plains, circa 1900.

A pair of boy’s armbands worked in light blue glass beads, each carrying a broad, dark red cruciform device enclosing smaller white crosses. The beaded hide bands retain ties and long white ermine pendants with dark-tipped tails. The compact beadwork and extended pelts give the pair a distinctive proportion, with the fur falling well beyond the bands themselves.

The design depends on a limited but effective palette. Translucent reddish beads form the principal devices against the opaque blue ground, while the small white crosses provide sharply defined internal details. Seen together, the bands repeat the same decorative scheme, their symmetry enlivened by the natural variation of the pelts.

Among the Blackfoot, or Niitsitapi, clothing and its ornamentation were important expressions of women’s skill and of relationships within the family. Designs could pass between generations, and making clothing for children formed part of that continuing practice. Glass beads acquired through trade expanded the materials available to makers, while hide, fur, and quillwork remained integral to Blackfoot dress.

The combination of beadwork and ermine is also documented on Blackfoot garments, including shirts whose decorated bands were accompanied by pale fur pendants. In these armbands, the same contrast between closely worked beads and soft, trailing fur is adapted to a child’s scale. They preserve the care given to a small accessory within a more extensive ensemble of dress, with color concentrated at the arm and the ermine providing movement below.