And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Interesting- found this- 19th century Kiowa women's ceremonial dress clothing: the elk tooth buckskin dress. Since an elk only has two ivory "eye teeth" used as adornments, this child's dress would have required the ivory remains of more than 200 elk.
At any time during a Kiowa woman's life, she would have only had one dress of this type, intended for all ceremonial purposes. At the end of a Kiowa woman's life, it was common practice for Kiowa females to be buried in their ceremonial dresses. Kiowa elk tooth dresses of the nineteenth century were important, exceptionally well crafted, unbelievably artistic, rare, and extremely valuable especially during the last decade of the nineteenth century, and for all practical purposes became non-existent during the early years of the twentieth century.
Given the rarity, and value of these teeth, the number of teeth on a dress was important and identified family status and stature. The tribes that used these teeth to decorate clothing believed that the teeth not only displayed a measure of individual wealth but, because being ivory, these teeth remained after every other part of the elk had returned to dust, and were associated with good luck and long life.
a hundred years on, she'd still turn my head!
ReplyDeleteA hell of a lot cuter than the chick who played Liver-Eating Johnson's wife
ReplyDeletein the movie Jeremiah Johnson.
She kinda reminds me of the one who had the dirty nose sign at the trading post in Outlaw Josie Wales. "She likes the bucks huh? Put her on my tab."
DeleteInteresting- found this-
Delete19th century Kiowa women's ceremonial dress clothing: the elk tooth buckskin dress.
Since an elk only has two ivory "eye teeth" used as adornments, this child's dress would have required the ivory remains of more than 200 elk.
At any time during a Kiowa woman's life, she would have only had one dress of this type, intended for all ceremonial purposes. At the end of a Kiowa woman's life, it was common practice for Kiowa females to be buried in their ceremonial dresses. Kiowa elk tooth dresses of the nineteenth century were important, exceptionally well crafted, unbelievably artistic, rare, and extremely valuable especially during the last decade of the nineteenth century, and for all practical purposes became non-existent during the early years of the twentieth century.
Given the rarity, and value of these teeth, the number of teeth on a dress was important and identified family status and stature. The tribes that used these teeth to decorate clothing believed that the teeth not only displayed a measure of individual wealth but, because being ivory, these teeth remained after every other part of the elk had returned to dust, and were associated with good luck and long life.
Thanks for the information, Robert. It's always good to learn about other cultures, especially one that is largely gone.
ReplyDeletePaul L. Quandt