[NATIVE AMERICAN] c. 1900 Kiowa Beaded Hide Women’s Boot Moccasins

A Pair of Kiowa Beaded Hide Women’s Boot Moccasins. Southern Plains, circa 1900.

An elegant pair of women’s boot moccasins, fashioned from warm yellow hide with tall legging uppers, broad turned-down cuffs, and hide ties. Paired vertical bands of white glass beadwork descend along the fronts, interrupted by repeating angular devices in dark blue, brick red, green, and amber-orange. Related ornament continues around the lower legs, linking the vertical bands to narrow ankle borders. Small beads and slender hide tabs further articulate the side edges, while the largely undecorated feet terminate in separately attached hide soles.

The decorative scheme depends upon a carefully judged balance between slender beaded lines and expansive areas of colored hide. Alternating passages of green and orange enliven the repeated motifs, while the pale cuffs provide a softer frame above the more precisely ordered ornament. The fronts carry the principal decoration; the backs retain broad, uninterrupted surfaces beneath their folded cuffs.

Commonly termed legging moccasins, this garment form united footwear and leg coverings in a single construction. It is well documented in Kiowa women’s dress: the National Museum of the American Indian preserves a pair dated circa 1890 combining hide, glass beads, and pigment. Such objects demonstrate how the preparation and coloring of hide worked together with selectively placed beadwork to produce a distinctive approach to dress.

Dating to approximately 1900, the present pair offers a particularly pleasing expression of that tradition. Its distinction lies in the measured repetition of the beaded devices and the assured use of the yellow ground as an active element of the composition. A beautiful example.