[NATIVE AMERICAN] Historic Beaded Shoulder and Sleeve Strips Mounted on a Modern Cloth Shirt

A Man’s Cloth Shirt Incorporating Period Beadwork, Including Sioux Shoulder Strips. Northern Plains beadwork; modern garment and ermine skins.

Note: The beaded shoulder and sleeve strips are period work mounted on a newly made cloth shirt. The ermine skins are also modern, added for display. 

The principal interest of this assembled garment lies in its older beadwork. Broad shoulder strips extend over the chest and back, their alternating fields of white and deep blue beads divided by narrow horizontal bands. Stepped blue outlines enclose open diamond forms within the white passages, while small white rectangles interrupt the darker sections above. The sleeve strips employ a different arrangement: elongated white grounds carry repeated dark blue triangular devices enclosing muted red and yellow-brown centers.

The modern shirt provides a dark setting for these contrasting compositions. Its loose body and long sleeves are edged with pale fabric, while divided red and blue panels descend from the neckline within borders of hide fringe. White ermine skins, several retaining dark tail tips, hang beside the beadwork from attachments accented with red cloth. Their irregular contours introduce movement around the more firmly ordered beaded bands.

Decorated shoulder and sleeve strips formed an important part of Plains shirt construction, concentrating ornament along the upper body and arms. More broadly, such shirts could communicate personal distinction, generosity, and communal recognition.

The lot offers an opportunity to study period beadwork as a group of distinct decorative elements. The different treatments of the shoulder and sleeve strips remain clearly legible within their modern setting, allowing their workmanship, color, and geometric organization to be appreciated individually.

Man’s shirt, new cloth, new ermine skins, period old beaded shoulder (Sioux) and sleeve strips; Highlight old strips on new cloth bc someone might buy just for the strips